But it wasn’t just the change in the weather that was causing the bitter chill running through my veins. Every news bulletin, daily paper and radio broadcast seemed to be yelling out a warning of hardship to come.

The biggest interest rate rise for 30 years is being met with potentially the longest recession since records began.

Meanwhile, we could be coping with power cuts some days between 4pm and 7pm.

This is not how it was supposed to be, or how it could have been.

But this coming winter, we will be paying the price for the mismanagement of the economic impact of the pandemic and picking up the pieces of a misguided, some would say delusional, exchequer experiment.

The internationally respected Resolution Foundation, an independent think tank, estimates the government’s disastrous mini budget last month added £1,200 to a typical family’s annual mortgage bill.

Other estimates put that cost of the interest rate hike at around £800 per household.

The frost is bringing back memories of hard times past - and thoughts of the future we face - for Christine Jardine. PIC: geograph.org

Whichever way you look at it, the next few months could be the most difficult we have faced for decades.

I am old enough, just, to have vague memories of 1970s pre-Thatcher Britain when the combination of inflation and a stagnant economy brought misery to millions.

Of course then I was more concerned with space hoppers and whether Santa would bring me a stylophone than global inflation rates.

And I wasn’t really sure why grown-ups didn’t like the prospect of a four or even three-day week since surely they would have more time off?

But one memory sticks out.

It was coming home from school to our usually cosy, modern council house with its electric heating to discover that a fireplace in one of the bedrooms has been brought back into service, just in case.

Again, I saw it more as an adventure than a problem and had no concept of the worry my parents must have felt over keeping their three young children warm and fed in the crisis.

I do now.

Every day I hear from constituents who have weathered the worst of the pandemic, survived the early impact of the cost of living crisis but now worry, often for others, about what is to come.

The message was driven home this week when we began to collate the results of a cost of living survey that we are in the middle of distributing across Edinburgh West.

More than 700 constituents have already responded with their concerns over mortgages, food prices and energy bills.

The vast majority of responses were returned to me before the latest bad news was announced by the Bank of England.

It is testament to the community spirit in the city that many of those who responded highlighted the issues that may be faced by others, rather than themselves.

But sadly the picture emerging now is one that will involve all of us in some way as prices rise, mortgage and rent rates increase and ends are much more difficult to make meet.

That is why it has become so frustrating to listen to both of Scotland’s governments avoiding the only issue which is dominating so many lives.

From the UK Government we too often hear the trotted-out excuses about the undoubted tragedies of the pandemic and war in Ukraine like some inexcusable shield for their incompetence.

There is no denying the challenge but it is their failure in handling them that is the root of public dissatisfaction.

That Resolution Foundation calculation would not have been necessary if the short-term leadership of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng had not taken a disastrous gamble with our future.

And if Boris Johnson had listened to Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey a year ago and brought in a proper, effective windfall tax on the excess profits of oil and gas producers and frozen domestic energy bills, the picture might not look so bleak.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak can still act to mitigate the mistakes of his predecessors but if he wastes time listening to the SNP, none of us will see any improvement.

With a rare opportunity this week to dictate the debate in parliament and hold this government to account, they chose instead to focus on independence.

The lack of attention to the real issues that we see from the SNP/Green administration at Holyrood was reflected in the indulgent rantings of their Westminster cohort.

I respect that they have a different vision for Scotland. So do I, but a I want a better one for all of us in a reformed and federal UK.

And once we have weathered this economic storm, I will continue the campaign for that change. But this winter’s challenges must surely come first.

I thought of that Seventies childhood as I scraped aside the first frost of this winter. I realise now that while I was largely immune to the troubles around me at first, I was largely shaped by what I experienced later in that decade.

And throughout my married life, I was aware the comfort we felt through the 90s and early 21st century could quickly evaporate.

I know now this generation will not enjoy the same level of comfort that I have been privileged to see, but I will do my best to repair the damage that has been done to their futures.

Christine Jardine is the Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West.

The bitter chill of winter is sharpened by the excuses of our governments - Christine Jardine