I am almost but not quite coming down with a cold. The symptoms never went further than a scratchy throat, chills, and tiredness. Feeling better today than yesterday so I’m pretty sure that was that.

I’m still cold, though. I don’t like drinking tea or coffee, and hot chocolate is too sweet, so I warmed myself with a hot glass of low-alcohol glögg. It’s traditionally a Christmas drink in Sweden, but I’m not Swedish enough to care about that and can happily drink glögg all the way to February.

Not being used to hot drinks, I need to be careful about the temperature of my drink. Coffee drinkers are sometimes like fire swallowers – how they don’t damage their mouths, I have no idea. There’s a narrow range of temperature where it’s hot enough to warm me, but not hot enough to burn me. Hence my improvised glass cosy, to keep it in that range.

Immediately I thought – I should knit a proper one! No, I should not. I would use it literally once or twice a year at most. A sock is a much better solution.