In my daily life, I am surrounded by noise and opinion, and over the past few years I have found myself seeking comfort from politically dark winters and the relentlessly bleak news cycle. But this time it’s not from something as natural and as fleeting as the weather. Years later, and I feel like retreating again. I had been out in the wind and snow and had retreated to warm up. There was also the log fire, of course it’s an alchemic thing – we all know a storage heater just doesn’t kick out the same cosy vibe as crackling logs, despite them being petrol-station-bought, rather than forest-felled. And the soup wasn’t the only important ingredient – I was with my parents, and that reassuring comfort of being with people you love is key. The soup was steaming, the fire was crackling and I was slowly thawing. We came home, wet, frozen and rosy-cheeked, and sat in front of our log fire with a bowl of Heinz tomato soup, dipping brown bread coated with margarine into its smooth, scarlet loveliness. It was the unusually cold winter of 1990 and I’d been sledging with my dad in Greenwich Park, in south-east London. I can remember the precise moment that I first identified a cosy feeling.
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