"La Chaleur c'est le premier confort."

I have some friends who have a second home in a village in France, where this message hangs above their kitchen door.  And it's true.  I remember once watching a natural history documentary about mammals, where a cluster of rodents snuggled up together to sleep, and the narrator suggested that this is what love is for animals.  Warmth.

'Topení', as the Czechs call 'heating', does make a huge difference when winters are this bitterly cold.  I'm so glad I've got it this year!  That's one of the main things that makes being in the Czech Republic a step up from the UK.  Any musician, artist, actor or other breadline earner will tell you: heating in the UK is at a premium.  Almost no-one can afford to have it on constantly.  It's shockingly expensive because it's appallingly inefficient and wastes money on gas or electricity bills designed to put even a reasonably paid professional into inescapable debt.

But here I am, in a country most consider to be a little stuck behind the times, due to its communist history, and yet, it is keeping me warm even though it's -9 degrees centigrade out there.  In London I would have been wearing 7 layers and still freezing, carrying a hot water bottle around with me to try to cope.  And don't even start on what the experience of having a shower at 6.30am was like....Dear god, I am so lucky I escaped that.  So little heating, such luke warm water...

Here, I have a bathroom that although distinctly devoid of natural light or modern fittings, is hot.  I mean, HOT.  It's like a sauna in there.  To the point that I can no longer rely on my previous method of seeing whether the water was definitely coming out hot, by looking for the steam coming off it.  No.  Here, the steam comes off me only when I venture out of the bath and into the corridor.

Nonetheless, it is a bathroom vastly enhanced to the higher echelons of luxury when equipped with a chilled glass of champagne (which I obviously have to drink rather rapidly, before it becomes warm champagne) a few chocolates and some books or magazines on the small wooden chair employed as a table beside it.  

However, right now, I think a finely grated 70% cocoa real hot chocolate drink is in order.