How I manage to be surprised by the impact of low temperatures annually – year in and year out – is a mystery to me. 

Just like trying to pack for a snow trip at the height of summer when you are warm, it seems difficult then to believe that life will ever be painfully cold again. 

Painfully cold it is at present, with most of the pain being in my knees. 

I have decided that my aching winter joints are affected with arthritis, following a teenage bone condition, but that hasn’t stopped me donning Tiani’s pink ballet leg warmers around the house. 

Remembering to remove them before heading out is problematic. 

Our current weapons against the cold include a raging wood fire and electric blankets on our beds -which were on full bore here last week.  

Scorch injuries were a risk factor for our daughters as they dived into beds simply sizzling with heat, with the switch ramped up to three the flannelette sheets were crispy. 

Kym lashed out on electric blankets for everyone last year, thank goodness. 

I had banned anything but hot water bottles for years, after reading an article about how sleeping on all that wiring and electricity could be bad for your health. 

Maybe it is bad for our health, and maybe our electric blankets are slowly killing us by making us fat, but then again, a good layer of fat seems sensible at this time of year and it’s better than being frozen stiff. 

Even with the ‘lecky’ blanket set to kill, I still suspected I could feel a thin layer of ice across the top of my doona cover in the wee small hours of the morning a couple of times last week.

But it might just have been my imagination. 

Scarves, gloves and hats have been moved into position.

And it seems new items are obviously necessary, as last year’s equipment has completely vanished. 

No poor performance will be tolerated in the coat department either, and some serious layering is under way.  

All three of my girls seem quite happy to stand with the fridge door wide open still though, letting the cold flood in. 

Apparently they don’t know that we are at war!  

A Mum’s World by Yolande Grosser appears in the Monday edition of the Wimmera Mail-Times.