This piece was written for the Six Sentence Challenge, with the prompt word of ‘armour’.
I’m an Australian on a brief visit to the city the locals insist is pronounced Tronno and my hosts have pre-warned me to buy some protective clothing as armour against the snow conditions, as well as earmuffs and heavy boots, but I economise with a heavy coat, a thick scarf and a beanie.
That evening they pick me up in a car and take me to a nearby restaurant that serves fabulous Thai food but weariness makes me want to call time early but I insist on my hosts staying to enjoy themselves.
After all, it’s only 3 blocks to my hotel.
By now it is minus 25 and the wind is howling.
After block 1, I can no longer feels my hands inside my inadequate gloves and after block 2, I feel like if I touch my ears or my beard they will break off and by half-way along block 3, I fear I won’t make it because my street-shoe-clad feet have turned to solid ice.
Cursing my miserliness, somehow I make it into the hotel and slump in an armchair, waiting for something approximating feeling to return to my feet so I can make it across the lobby to the lifts.
Six Crooked Highways 
Those of us from the swamps have precious little protection against the cold, and i would imagine coming from Australia would be about the same. Some things you just have to learn by experience.
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Indeed, Mimi, bitter cold experience. 🙂
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Three blocks is three blocks. Good reminder to take the advice of the locals.
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Indeed, Frank. Lesson learned the hard way. 😉
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As a SoCal native, I can relate to this. I think that I have no idea what COLD really is.
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Head north for winter some day, if you really want to. 🙂
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I’d be bundled up like the Michelin Man, lol I can’t stand being cold! I know – a very unpleasant lesson to learn but once learned….never again 🙂
Chill Six, Doug 😆
P.S. I like your application of the prompt word.
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Thanks, Denise. Yes, pride goeth before a fall of frostbite. 🙂
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Three icey blocks in Toronto(?) ain’t the cool treat they are in ‘Straya.
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Indeed not.
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And …and! the process of recovery is not walk in the tundra.
The defrost of body parts, all too often, is more painful than the freezing process.
Excellent Six
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Thanks, clark. No permanent damage done but I think it was 2 hours before any sense of feeling returned to my feet. 🙂
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One of my husbands froze to death in Canada after sitting down on a park bench on his way back from a pub 😟
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I’m so sorry to hear of your loss, NNP, especially in such a seemingly normal everyday situation. My experience was nowhere near as life threatening but based on it I can easily see how that might happen.
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Oh my word, Deb. How truly dreadful. 😧
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It was 😕
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Sorry, Not Pam, I was laughing before I realised you might be serious!
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Do you have Scottish ancestors, Doug? 😉 As your story progressed through the degrees of chill and misery, you had me reaching for the central heating control, so real did the narrator’s plight seem. In fact, I’m away for a cup of tea to heat me up!
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Perhaps, Jenne. Despite the French name, my only traceable forebears are from England. However given that I was a redhead in my youth, it may suggest there was a Scottish milkman somewhere along the way. 🙂 Stay warm.
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Brrr, that was a chilly tale alright, and timely now November’s here. Furthest north I’ve lived was in the Midlands, UK, a bit nippy, and that was in the summer 🙂
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Summer? Luxury! When I were a lad, we lived in shoebox in middle t’road. 🙂
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😂 love it. We were so poor we didn’t even have roads.
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You’ve probably seen this but always worth a re-visit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26ZDB9h7BLY
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A classic, and big smile as I just watched it again. Thanks for the reminder, Doug.
“Ooh, we used to dream of a corridor!” 🤣😂😁
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You have me shivering just thinking about the first time I experienced “cold” unlike any another experiences I had felt prior to that time of trying to learn how to ice skate on a pond when it was 40 degrees below 0 degrees F. Since it was an activity I hadn’t anticipated, I was thoroughly unprepared with the kind of clothing I should have been wearing.
Great description of your walk back to hotel! Nice use of the prompt.
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Thank you, Pat. Yes, there’s nothing like experiencing it to remind you forever. 😉
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You can’t be too careful with the weather in some places. I’d really like to visit Toronto, but only in the summer. Love the Four Yorkshiremen skit – I grow up in Yorkshire (pretty chilly there too).
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Toronto and its people are wonderful, so visit away. Just be careful of what Billy Connolly says (and which I ignored): ‘There’s no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.’ 🙂
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Ah yes, good advice from a man who was forced to wear a knitted swimming costume as a child (as was I)!
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Could have been worse; could have been crocheted. 🙂
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Painful piece, Doug, reminding me why I abandoned my beloved homeland for the shores of the Med!
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Said like a true Scot. And safer under the kilt to boot. 🙂
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BRRRR It makes me not miss those midwest winters even more.
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