I’m going to accept the theory that Halloween is a celebration of the dead derived from pagan times. It’s a regular festival that Christians cleverly converted into a Christian holiday. I don’t think Europeans started the remembrance of our ancestors. That act maybe as ancient as modern humans. What a good time to mark a transition. At a change of the seasons. Nature shows us the power of death and rebirth most acutely as the leaves fall and winter’s cold winds sweep in. To think the trees that invested all the energy in making leaves cast them aside. But they do so confident that one day there will be springtime again.
Hunker down as the clocks go back on the last Sunday of the month. Slightly lighter in the mornings. Darkness falling as soon as the workday ends. It’s a time for adjustment. That’s one marker of season change in the northern hemisphere.
I’m ready. Already there’s a distance from the summer months of parched grass and constant watering. Withering plants and rock-hard ground. It’s as if they never existed. I need my wellington boots to walk about the lawn. Watering can hung-up till next year.
Warmth is ebbing away. The exception being the moments when the low sun still baths me in bright sunlight. In the shad there’s no such relief. Shadows grow longer. I’m in a mood to prepare for winter. Ruffling through the bedroom wardrobe for warmer cloths.
Where does the TOG number come from? It’s that time of year. Time to TOG-up. Take the summer duvet and replace it with the winter one. When the temperature outside starts to hang below single figures it’s time to change the duvet. It’s obvious. Change to a fuller warmer one. Warmer by numbers but what does that mean? Do I need to know?
Try telling the kids of today. I grew-up in a house without central heating. Grabbing an extra woolly blanket. Creating a secure cocoon. Desperate not to break the seal. That was the bedroom of my youth. Howling winds and rain swept across the open fields. Thick farmhouse walls kept them at bay. Shakey sash windows equalised the temperature inside and out.
Now, piles of blankets are outdated. Primitive times. Generous heating and a fluffy duvet insulate me from the tormented autumn weather. The passing south westerly storms.
Keeping it simple the higher the TOG the better the insulation. Not that the word TOG has a scientific meaning. However, underlying it is a system of measurement but it’s almost pointless relating the number crunching. I would have thought the T in TOG would be “thermal” but no.
It’s a slang word. I do it every day. I’m putting on my togs. My gear. My garments. My clothes. It’s that basic.
John Vincent 