My office is cold. One, namely me, might even say freezing.

And I don�t generally feel the cold. I�m one of those average, normal temperatured people who get hot when it�s properly hot and cold when it�s properly cold, but am generally perfectly comfortable with the ambient temperature chosen by the air-conditioning or heating set to �average�.

My house is big, old, and triple-bricked so it can hold the cold pretty well. But I�m perfectly comfortable in the lounge with the heater on normal. Unlike Betty who within fifteen minutes of sitting down is so cold that the evening usually takes place with Betty under the warmth of a jumper, woolly slippers, two blankets, a beanie hat and/or sweatshirt hood, and the heater. Oh, and alcohol of some variety, of course. And while that sounds like an exaggeration, I am sad to say it�s not. At all.

In fact one day this past summer I came home mid-afternoon, in the full heat of what may have actually been the hottest day of the summer, to find Betty sitting in the lounge room with the window wide open to allow the maximum amount of the blast furnace that was the temperate and wind outside to make it�s way inside because despite three days of high temperatures absorbed into the triple-bricks, it was apparently too cold. Did I mention Betty was wearing a sweatshirt, jeans and woolly slippers?

I don�t suffer from this kind of affliction. I get a bit colder if I sit in one place for a long time. But that�s all.

Which is why it distresses me somewhat to say that I�m currently sitting at my desk wearing my heaviest winter overcoat and contemplating putting my gloves on.

I have never yet worked in a building where the heating/air-conditioning does what it�s supposed to. In the case of this office we haven�t, in five and a half years, been able to determine which thermostat � of the half dozen on the floor � my room is connected to. Perhaps none, as it appears to have a life of its own. One which puts me uncomfortably in a zone a good five degrees cooler than the rest of the floor. One which cannot be adjusted.

And it�s the same degree of freezing whether it�s winter or summer, whether the heating part or the air-con part is turned on. Everyone who comes into my office comments on it. None of them have found a way to fix it, dammit.

Some days I cope okay and don�t really notice it. Other days, like today, I freeze the whole time and have to resort to overcoats.

Being so cold does help to cut down on my diet coke consumption. Diet coke = cold = me freezing. Sadly that�s more than compensated for by the few extra litres of hot tea I�ve been drinking to help warm me up. Hot tea = warm = me warm and totally over-caffeinated. (And no, no caffeine-free herbal tea recommendations thanks. I am simply not a herbal tea drinker, and never will be. I have to maintain some unhealthy standards.)

To say that I�m looking forward to going home to my pyjamas, heated living room and hot soup for dinner would be a gross understatement. I love winter. I love going home to all of those things on a winter night. It�s the being in my icebox office all day that�s the problem.

Though I suppose the cold and the caffeine do reduce the chances of me falling asleep on my keyboard after lunch.