Chapette's winter manifesto

You'd think they'd never seen anyone perform a piece of interpretive dance dedicated to the first frost at a bus stop before. And perhaps they haven't, but far stranger things happen in Camden Town '“ let the 7ft transvestite in a cloak and top hat distract them from my gleeful songs about chilblains.

This week has been the week, you see, when the British weather decides it would like a makeover and checks itself on to the geological What Not To Wear.

One day dowdy, muggy, likely to produce beads of perspiration on the upper lips of commuters, it suddenly emerges the next in an icy new outfit, accessorised with a red nose and the need to say "brrr" every 12 seconds to nobody in particular.

I remember, dimly, a season known as autumn that we used to have in my youth.

It was a magical period, full of crunching brown leaves underfoot and needing to wear a light sweater, but not a coat.

We would ride bicycles along the seafront and play Monopoly in front of the fire (actually, I don't have a fire or, indeed, a bicycle, but poetic licence demands them).

During the time of autumn, special foods would reappear, having been in hiding since March; vegetable soup, crumpets dripping with butter, sardines on toast, cinnamon in places you weren't expecting it.

Of course, my memories of autumn appear to have been confused with an Enid Blyton book from the '50s '“ I'm well aware that the reality was a snotty nose for three months solid, with little more excitement than the annual September trip to choose a new pencil case from WH Smiths. But the point is, autumn barely exists any more.

Instead, we have the last dregs of summer, outstaying its welcome through chaps named Clive still wearing flip-flops to the pub in October.

It lingers long after we want it, especially in London, where spending a tube journey standing in someone's armpit is one of the numerous reasons that post-August heatwaves are received with little joy (oh, how one misses the seaweedy waft of Worthing breeze).

It hangs around like an unwelcome aunt until we've all given up hope of donning that new in-between-seasons jacket before it's officially antique, then, suddenly, BAM! Winter turns up with a suitcase and starts handing out the chest infections.

Against all the odds, however, I love it. I love it partly because it provides a nice release from the grumpy old woman I have always inevitably become during the summer '“ demanding a sit-down at seven-minute intervals and forming makeshift fans out of anything that can produce a decent air stream like a lady in the grips of menopause.

Once winter arrives, however, I am footloose, fancy-free, and something of a romantic poet.

Every frozen-over puddle becomes a personal skating rink. I delight in being rosy-cheeked without the help of blusher, and I contemplate buying a muff.

The best thing about the current climate by far, though, is that it allows me to do valuable work in the field of extreme physical endurance.

This has always been a favourite pastime of mine, since the first time I was handed a hot glue gun in year five and left to my own devices (NB: skin doesn't always grow back as quickly as you think it will).

Over the years, I have stapled various fingers, purposely encouraged pins and needles so that things could be poked in my leg without feeling it, and worn more comically inhumane footwear than a Vivienne Westwood model. I'm practically David Blaine in a frock.

And now, much of my time is occupied with seeing just how long I can last outdoors, and with how little insulation.

While my (criminally unhealthy) flatmates have a fag break on the step outside our building, buried in fleeces and sweatshirts and foil-lined boiler suits, I can be found hopping up and down on the spot next to them in a sun dress and no shoes, muttering things about the anatomy of brass monkeys while my lips turn slowly mauve.

It's exciting, you see, to push one's body to its limits, not to mention the way it makes you appreciate central heating all the more when you finally yield. And, hey, it might just get me one step closer to that "great British eccentric" tag.

Which would be cool.