Coffee and Crunchies in NYC

Coffee and Crunchies in NYC

When you leave the sunny, warm shores of South Africa you take with you the thin blood you inherited.

Coffee and Crunchies in NYC

Ice at Lady Liberty's feet

The crunchies are baked and the coffee is brewing.

The temperature is reported as 16F, but feels like -10F (-21C for those outside of the US). When they say “feels like” we know we’re in the dwang, despite the clear blue sky and the sun beaming in through our 21st floor Brooklyn Heights apartment windows.

Baking, and therefore eating, weather! Off to the store I went for the Jungle Oats because that’s what’s listed in the ingredients. Guess I had to settle for the Quaker kind. A dangerous mission indeed it turned out to be as I slipped and slid along the icy sidewalks. Good for strengthening those core muscles if not for anything else.

When you leave the sunny, warm shores of South Africa you take with you the thin blood you inherited. That doesn’t change. But your wardrobe does. I lived in cold places in South Africa…Welkom, Johannesburg and Pietermaritzburg. How we shivered through 2 months of mid-winter, hogging the bar heater, or worse still, the asbestos kind, and moving our hot water bottles from our tummies to our feet to between our knees.

It’s different here in the USA, especially on the north east coast. Homes, in fact all buildings, are heated. And when we travel between point A and point B, we’re dressed in genuine winter gear. Crucial items are: headgear, gloves, scarf, socks, boots and the all-important coat.

So, please, no respect for me for enduring a New York City winter. It’s a cinch. The coffee has brewed!