I used to dislike the cold, always feeling I suffered greatly from it due to growing up in poverty in the UK and living in damp spaces (mould on the walls, condensation on the window, a cough always a breathe away).
Then I was homeless, sleeping rough through UK winters.
One does adapt, and fairly quickly too. The first nights I slept out during snowfall I didn't get much sleep as I was shivering too violently and uncontrollably. On subsequent nights I discovered cardboard (helps prevent the moisture from dew covering your body and subsequently freezing, as well as acting like an air cocoon around you holding warmer air to the body).
It was still below freezing on those nights, but I'd adapted the environment enough to remove the most severe effects. In turn, I was able to adapt to the temperature itself. I would feel myself slow down, and fall into very deep and peaceful sleeps.
It's been a long time since I was homeless, and I am fortunate now to have a roof above my head during winter. One thing remains though, I still never use the heater and leave all of the windows open in my flat. Last night was -2'c in London with a Northerly wind, and yet all of my windows were left open and I slept soundly.
For me, I tend to have a problem in the other extreme now: I find it hard to stay awake or do anything when the temperature is too high (above 30'c) and plan most holidays to be in cold climates or off-seasons so as to ensure I get the most out of them (side-effect of also being cheaper and avoiding a crush of tourists too).
Very true. Yesterday it was about 38c with a sensation much higher, and at night I slept pretty good with my trusty blanket. I've lived in tropical climates pretty much my whole life, and it's the cold places that bother me.
In the most extreme conditions I used to visit building sites as the site offices tended to remain unlocked (there's nothing in there to steal) and they were unattended from 7pm through 5am. They also tended to have a kettle and some enamel cups... usually all dirty at the end of a day but with boiling water to hand that isn't an issue. One can sleep there and actually feel really safe and secure, not just from the harshest conditions but I never saw anyone else in those spaces so I didn't have to fear being mugged either.
The very worst thing to do is precisely what you see some homeless people do, which is to drink alcohol. It's temporarily soothing and warming, but your body loses some of it's ability to effectively regulate temperature. The people I saw in the worst trouble when I walked the streets were those who drank heavily.
Strange how I didn't comprehend at the time that my extreme hunger over winter could probably be correlated with the cold and burning more calories to deal with it. Thankfully compassion increases during winter and food is slightly more readily available.
The only other thing I'll add is shoes. If your feet are warm when you're walking your 30 miles a day (what I believe I averaged through rough calculation) then you feel warm. Cold feet and you feel freezing. Good boots, thick soles, are a blessing and felt more valuable to me than a heavy coat.
Actually, another thing. Wisdom says to layer, but if you're not actually mobile much overnight I always found fewer thicker layers to be better. i.e. a thick cable-knit jumper trumped multiple thinner layers. I suspect layers are really the solution for highly active people such as skiers, runners and so on, but if you're immobile in the cold a thick jumper helps more.
A little bit off-topic, but why were you walking so much? And where did you find so much energy to do so (I presume you would probably need to eat a lot (much more than 2,000 calories) to be able to walk so many miles)?
I'd made myself homeless to move on from a place I didn't want to be.
I didn't really see the point in staying in a new place I didn't want to be (sitting on a street).
I chose to walk cities, talk to people, hitchhike around the UK, and generally see if I could find a life and place I did want.
It also means I avoided getting into a rhythm of hostels, soup kitchens, and charity.
I know I was homeless and sleeping rough, but at the time I didn't view it like that. At the time I just viewed myself as a nomad, wandering around with a backpack containing some library books for company.
Varied greatly, from Pizza Hut all you can eat buffets, through to toast provided by students who let me crash.
For a long time I used Complan and other "off your food" alternatives as supplements to a bad diet - http://www.complan.com/nutritional-info.aspx . Very much like Soylent is doing today, they provided a simple way to get everything you might need. They say to only have one or two per day, I used to consume 2-3 with milk and also add pasta to the mix (I had a camping stove and pasta was my most reliable simple meal).
It varied greatly though, I was homeless for almost two and half years. Diet was something I got wrong a lot before I got it mostly right. I was much healthier when I was sleeping rough than I was when I was living in damp social housing on a diet of whatever my mother could deep fry.
I was someone back then that I didn't like, I'm glad I moved on but if I did a comprehensive job of putting it in words I'd have to re-live that time again, and who I was. Hate to go all Bladerunner, but I've seen things, done things, that I no longer want the memory of. Putting it into words would give it life again.
You're most likely familiar with Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris and London" and "The Road to Wigan Pier", two of the finest books ever written.
The first is his "vivid and moving account of life below poverty line", first in Paris, when he, after resigning being a servant of the Empire as a police officer in Burma, had to resort to low-wage, hard, menial 17-hour works in Paris restaurants, and later when he lived as a "tramp" in London, going from spike to spike, meeting others like him.
I don't know if you'd "enjoy" these books though... But they are unrivaled in their shrewdness and, well, it is Orwell and he can write better than anyone.
How about practical advice to those who find themselves in the same situation? Dictate into a sound recorder to minimise the engagement with the memories?
I acted like it was an adventure because it was the only way to deal with what I was doing. I left home, to sleep on the street, without any money or possessions, until such a time (for as far as I could see into the future) that I could get my life to a better place.
If I hadn't walked around a little in make-believe and "Scout on a quest" type mode, well... maybe I wouldn't be here.
During the darkest days on the street I thought I wouldn't live to be 20. It still haunts a little today: perhaps I should have been dead (many times over)?
By pretending it was an adventure then, and revising my personal history of it now to sound more adventurous (and less dull, traipsing on my own around cities), helps me to survive now.
> Actually, another thing. Wisdom says to layer, but if you're not actually mobile much overnight I always found fewer thicker layers to be better. i.e. a thick cable-knit jumper trumped multiple thinner layers. I suspect layers are really the solution for highly active people such as skiers, runners and so on, but if you're immobile in the cold a thick jumper helps more.
It's a matter of managing the sweat. In the winter you want to be warm up until you start sweating. Sweat in the winter freezes and makes you more cold. Layers help wick away sweat, and are easier to adjust so you don't get too hot. So, yeah, layers are much more important when being active.
I know of a guy that lives in the wood next to my town. Even in harsh winter, you can be quite warm if you can have a fire and snow to build shelter. The poor guys in Montréal don't have that luck and sleep in every corner you can find that cuts the wind.
One of our city-based HPC facilities has had a recurring fault where the aircon goes off for no obvious reason overnight. Eventually we figured out that a homeless guy had realised he could sleep above a vent from the aircon and be relatively warm - and had also realised he could turn off the system (it's not very secure) to cut the noise down but still be warm from the heat coming out.
At the moment we're just ignoring it as it's -3C just now in the daytime. Better to loose a few HPC jobs than freeze the poor guy.
Glad you are not homeless. In school, I read a short story written by Jack London about what it feels like to be really
cold--turns out he wrote it on a beach in Hawaii. Forgot the name of the story. When I read the story, I thought it was great literature, but I read it knowing I would never be homeless. As I have aged, and feel more financially vunerable--and sometimes close to being Homeless--these stories about being cold are too close to home.
Then I was homeless, sleeping rough through UK winters.
One does adapt, and fairly quickly too. The first nights I slept out during snowfall I didn't get much sleep as I was shivering too violently and uncontrollably. On subsequent nights I discovered cardboard (helps prevent the moisture from dew covering your body and subsequently freezing, as well as acting like an air cocoon around you holding warmer air to the body).
It was still below freezing on those nights, but I'd adapted the environment enough to remove the most severe effects. In turn, I was able to adapt to the temperature itself. I would feel myself slow down, and fall into very deep and peaceful sleeps.
It's been a long time since I was homeless, and I am fortunate now to have a roof above my head during winter. One thing remains though, I still never use the heater and leave all of the windows open in my flat. Last night was -2'c in London with a Northerly wind, and yet all of my windows were left open and I slept soundly.
For me, I tend to have a problem in the other extreme now: I find it hard to stay awake or do anything when the temperature is too high (above 30'c) and plan most holidays to be in cold climates or off-seasons so as to ensure I get the most out of them (side-effect of also being cheaper and avoiding a crush of tourists too).
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