This is why I can't call myself Scottish any longer

I’ll be as Scottish as you like in the summer.

I can do haggis, kilts, Saltire face paints, enjoy hoolies, patch people, chug Irn-Bru, revisit Victor & Barry, sing along to Deacon Blue - ‘ship called Dig-ni-ty’ - make sonsie faces, hike up munros, and embrace every cliche going.

I’m happy to chuck myself right in.

After all, I’m in love with the coconutty smell of gorse, the stony spoot-covered beaches, burnt shoulders - because even summer sun is unexpected - and unseasonally cold seas, the big azure skies and negotiating cobbles in flip-flops. There’s nowhere else on earth I’d rather be. I’m just happy to be here. Come here Scotland, gie us a hug.

However, I fear I’m a fair weather Scot, because I can’t do winter any longer.

I’m tapping out, as the recent Arctic blast has done me in. It has been, to use the accurate Scottish parlance, pure Baltic.

I’ve felt increasingly miserable, while the mercury has dropped. The same happened last year, and the one before. My tolerance to the cold is getting weaker with age. I’m fading fast.

Once I get to late November, it’s a bit like being dropped on a different planet, where the air is thinner, and not knowing how to survive.

I hate my fingertips feeling like frozen pigs-in-blankets. I go out there, and my eyes constantly stream from the outer corners, until I’ve got mascara streaks down my cheeks. The darkness at 3pm makes me feel gloomy.

My face aches and my chin feels especially cold, as well as the tops of my ears.

Perhaps this might be the year of the balaclava. It’s the only way, as I look like a simpleton in a beanie.

For a few days this week, I tried to lean in and appreciate the season’s beauty.

There was a morning, when the concrete was disco sparkly - but not slippy - and the low winter sun caught the icy chandeliers on every blade of grass. I enjoyed seeing the dogs in their winter knits, and watching the puffed up blackbirds bustling about the bare branches, while a grey squirrel - what IS their problem? - screeched at me.

Ah, it was Narnia-esque, and I felt like Mr Tumnus, especially since I was naked except for a red scarf and umbrella. Joking.

Anyway, if you’d handed me a hot chocolate, it would’ve made the perfect scene.

Snowy Edinburgh | Heartland Arts - stock.adobe.com

Yes, I had a moment, but it was pretty transient. I came back through the wardrobe door, and slammed it hard on my way in.

I wasn’t always so lily-livered (or should that be lily shivered).

There was a time when I adored this season, and rejoiced in the potential for coorie-ing down. At least it doesn’t have the sense of always-on-the-go FOMO that summer sometimes brings. Now, you can snuggle down, guilt-free, and enjoy the slowing down of entering goblin mode.

It’s a time for introspection and nurturing oneself. The menu is decent too. I’m a big fan of stews, casseroles, cassoulets, hotpots, and all those other words for exactly the same thing. Mind you, I eat them through the summer too, so scratch that.

Anyway, my enjoyment of winter went awry, coincidentally or not, around when the energy prices went flying up.

Now, I can’t stand this weather.

That’s partially because we can only afford to have the heating on for a couple of hours a day. There are morning rations, and evening rations. However, those have been slightly disrupted this week because there appears to be a poltergeist, who is messing with the boiler. The heating is switching itself off and on, so it’s like a warmth strobe.

Mocking us.

Anyway, when it is working, I want to be like a cat, and own one of those radiator hammocks, so I can soak up every spare centigrade.

Sometimes I get resentful, if I return home from something and the radiators are tepid. It is a relationship crime to use precious heating time when your other half is out of the house.

The worst minutes of the day are when I’m getting changed, from work clothes into exercise gear, or from those into my pyjamas. I have learnt some quick change techniques to rival Arturo Brachetti. These involve Velcro trousers, and a magnetic bra. Either that, or do frantic star jumps for 60 seconds before stripping off.

Thanks to the cold, I’ve also started turning in at about 8pm - a condition that Generation Z call ‘bed rotting’ - because then I can sizzle myself on the electric blanket for a couple of hours. The top setting makes me feel like a frizzled crepe.

And I feel a bit embarrassed about all of this, because being able to withstand cool temperatures should be a prerequisite of hardy Scottish-ness. It is what we do.

Most residents of this chilly country are known for being made of sterner stuff. There are people out there who’re still wearing shorts, workies in hoodies, and plenty of Christmas party-goers in mini skirts and sparkly boob tubes. Children are one demographic who seem entirely immune to the sensation of feeling cold, and always want to shed their restrictive parkas. Their blackened toes could be rattling around loose in their shoes like Smarties, and they would still be unbothered by the frost. True Scots.

In contrast, the last time I left the house, I wore six layers, including two puffer jackets.

So, yeah, I’m ready to relinquish my Scottish-ness for a few months.

Where next? Canada sounds balmy.