It's the first of December and yesterday was the first night it froze. The ice crystals on the grass  crunch under my shoes. Now it's day and according to my thermometer it is 7 degrees Celcius. Surely not that cold, or at least I'm not cold at this exact moment. The funny thing is that one day it is 11 degrees and I'm cold to my bones and no matter what I try I don't warm up. And another day it is 2 degrees, and I wear only one sweater all day, and I'm completely comfortable with the cold. But  everyday there comes a moment when my breath forms clouds, either in the morning, during the day or in the evening. By night, my breath forms tiny water drops on my sheets and blankets, all in all, it really is slowly becoming winter.

Most of my time I spend in my tent, only some days of the week I spend the day in college. So I was quick to adapt when it came to the cold, I had to, because the weather changes quickly. I set three rules:

1. Insulation. Once I'm warm, I have to keep myself warm, because warming up costs a lot more energy.

2. Move every 1 1/2 hours. Because I spend a lot of time in my tent, I sit a lot and inactivity means loosing heat fast. I noticed that after 2 hours I grow cold, so best to move a bit before that point.

3. External heat. When I'm cold, I have to move around for a bit, think of something else and warm myself with the following: 

My Tools

There are different tools I use, besides layering my clothing, to keep myself warm. At the coldest of days I use all three of them, but then I'm often pretty hot. I'm curious what the winter will change to this selection, maybe it will be enough, but maybe I'll need to add something to keep me warm. Anyway, here are the four things I have been using to keep myself warm since the end of August:

Wool. First thing you grab when you're cold is either a sweater or a blanket. But not every sweater or blanket is the same. Different materials have different properties, I study textile and I know this, but living in a tent I could experience the difference firsthand. When it's really cold and humid cotton will not warm you, it will make you ice cold. Cotton absorbs water, but cannot hold as much as wool. So it gets moist, and it will warm up very slowly so you will grow cold very quickly. Do you remember the times it was raining and your jeans got wet and you were shivering because your body could not heat it up so the water evaporated, instead it got your legs icy cold? This is what cotton does, it stores the cold water. Instead wool saved my life. I sit, eat and sleep on it. I have a couple of sheepskins that I use to sit on, because it's the only material that will store your body heat for the longest possible time. In bed, my sheets are made from cotton, and they are as cold as death itself during the night, but on top of it I have three sheepskins and they keep me comfortably warm - even hot!- during the night. So cotton should be forgotten, use wool when temperatures are cool.

Hot water bottles. These plastic ugly things are the best. Just the simple ones you can buy at any store. Fill it up with steaming hot tap water, or boil some water and let it cool off, and it's ready for use. During the last weeks of summer I only used one. It was actually all I had to keep me warm apart from some scarfs and blankets. Now I have two, and it's amazing. During the night I store one near my feet and one near my lower torso. Without warm feet I can't fall asleep and neither can I when I constantly have the feeling I have to go to the bathroom because my lower torso is cold. Hot water bottles are also perfect when you cannot wrap yourself in millions of blankets, for example during cooking. 

Fire. I have a G-stove with cooking view (couldn't let myself buy one without a glass door now could I?) and with my beginner skills it will heat the tent in half an hour up with 4 degrees Celcius. Sitting closer to the fire and it feels as if my face will melt. Its wonderful. Nothing more to add, the hot air from a fire is the best way to warm up the tent. I also learned a trick where people place big stones on the fire or stove. It will heat up when the fire is on, and when the fire dies stone will slowly cool down, giving off a low heat for an extra few hours. Great for during the night. 

Hot drinks and food. Nothing works faster then a cup of tea or hot food! Especially when you can hold your hot cup or container and warm your hands on it. In the morning I eat hot porridge and in the evening hot veggies. For lunch I usually eat some bread for carbohydrates and hot tea or chai. Hot spices like peppers, cinnamon and ginger are great ingredients to cook with during the coldest days. 

What is cold?

We all know that the temperature is the first thing we look at when it's either hot or cold. We want to know the numbers so we are prepared next time. But as I said before, 2 degrees on Monday and I'm shivering all day long, no matter what, while on Wednesday with 2 degrees I'm comfortable sipping my tea in the middle of the night with the doors and windows open. How cold I am depends in my experience on the sun, wind and humidity. The sun is an incredibly powerful heat source as I wrote about in this blog post  (link). When I'm cold and the sun comes trough the first thing I do is grab my stool and go outside to warm up. When there is little wind I'm sweating in no time. So when it's cloudy I must resort to external heat, because the sun isn't there to warm me up. 

Wind, and rain, are two incredibly strong powers that can make any nice, warm place grow cold pretty quickly. Sometimes the sun is actually making things colder in the long run. I experienced this many times by now. During the morning it was about 11 degrees and it was cloudy. By noon the sun came trough and it was delightfully warm. The water on the ground started to evaporate but because it was already quite late the sun went down, leaving small banks of mist behind. These banks, no matter how small or how big, are cold and will make the temperature drop even quicker as the night sets in. This is why heating and insolation is such an important part of our daily lives. If things get cold and wet while not heating a space properly, will lead to all sorts of problems like mould and a decreasing health.