The Other Winter Sting.

We’re having our first taste of winter in the UK at the moment: low temperatures and a coating of snow. I’m being reminded that this is the time of year when I worry constantly about the animals, consigned as they are to an entirely outdoor existence.

I know that winter brings death to a lot of wild animals, but what concerns me more is whether they suffer an emotional reaction. We know that animals have emotions, but do they function the same way ours do? Do cows, for example, suffer debilitating depressions while standing out in cold, wet fields through long winter nights? And what of those birds which spend the nights roosting in now-naked tree branches open to the elements?

I don’t know the answer to that. Does anybody? Maybe it’s better that I don’t.

I changed my bed linen over today. Off came the summer cotton to be replaced by heavy flannel and a (purportedly) 17-tog duvet. The trouble with feeling comfortable in bed, though, is that it makes me think of all the creatures out there, and then I feel the sting of guilt. Maybe I should try to develop the habit of feeling privileged instead, but to somebody like me it amounts to the same thing.