Cold comfort?

Posted on April 4, 2019 by Sue Vincent

We’ve had some glorious spring weather. It has been warm… into the high teens… It has been sunny. It has been a real joy to be outside with so many flowers in bloom. Bees, butterflies and small buzzing things have fluttered about busily. The birds are flying around with beaks full of twigs and fur to build their nests. It was so pleasant that even the summer skirt and sandals came out to play…

So why, I have to ask, did there have to be a thick sheet of ice across my windscreen this morning? I know the answer to that question… because it was the day when I had to clean out my son’s ironically named hot tub.

For my son, the hot tub is a necessary and therapeutic form of hydrotherapy, addressing the non-existent circulation and spasticity in his limbs. He uses it every morning. It allows him to warm immovable muscles and, after half an hour in its swirling, heated waters, he can move about with greater ease and a little less likelihood of injury.

For me, the hot tub is a monster I get to clean every month.

By the time I get my hands on it, that warm, comforting water has been replaced by the gelid jet of the hosepipe and I get to get wet. I get to plunge my arms shoulder-deep into a pool that would give arctic waters a run for their money. By the time I am done, my teeth are chattering, my lips are blue and I am chilled to the core. My hands have done their best impression of the Union flag, cycling through white to red to blue, reminding me they have Raynaud’s. What I really need at this point is a long soak in nice, warm water… and I stare at the misnamed ‘hot’ tub, cursing.

I have, in the past, had to crawl around in there removing leaves, debris and stray gastropods. I have fallen in head first and fully clothed, much to my son’s delight. I have walked away drenched from head to toe. These days, I generally manage to get away with just being cold and damp.  I have learned, in fact, how not to clean the hot tub.

Necessity throws many unpleasant tasks our way. We always learn from them and some of those lessons can be applied to other situations. We grow in knowledge and experience, finding new ways to address old problems.

Then we get complaisant. We think we know what we are doing. We’ve got it sussed. We get blasé…  and every so often, we are reminded that we don’t know half as much as we might like to think. We stop paying attention and that’s when the hot tub overfills and you have to bale… And it will inevitably do so on a day when the temperatures don’t climb much above freezing.

Paying attention, giving yourself to the task at hand, being present… we can talk about it all we like, but we are easy to distract and sometimes, we will get it wrong. And even everyday tasks can be teachers.

About Sue Vincent

Sue Vincent was a Yorkshire born writer, esoteric teacher and a Director of The Silent Eye. She was immersed in the Mysteries all her life. Sue maintained a popular blog and is co-author of The Mystical Hexagram with Dr G.M.Vasey. Sue lived in Buckinghamshire, having been stranded there due to an accident with a blindfold, a pin and a map. She had a lasting love-affair with the landscape of Albion, the hidden country of the heart. Sue  passed into spirit at the end of March 2021.
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57 Responses to Cold comfort?

  1. Auntysocial says:
    April 4, 2019 at 06:17

    Laughing because I feel your pain and know all too well what it’s like. I even saw you falling head first too.

    Every year I almost forget what it’s like having horses during winter. In the summer and hazy sunshine it seems a great idea and then you hit the end of Sept and from then until about late April it’s nothing but sludge, mud, rain, wind, more mud, frozen hose pipes, endlessly filling water buckets and stuffing nets and trying to negotiate your way around pitch black darkness.

    I’ll feel sure I’m prepped and have it all sussed then some joker moves the horses into a different field, sticks up some electric fencing without any white tape for me to walk into at 5am and even if I do see the fence and think I’m in front and ahead of the game, one of the dogs is seldom out from under my feet and will leg me up and leave me face down in mud anyway.

    In another couple of months it’ll be sunny and lovely again and I’ll pretend horses are a great idea 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

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  2. Ennle Madresan says:
    April 4, 2019 at 06:30

    You’re so right, Sue–opportunities to learn everyday.

    Liked by 1 person

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  3. Ritu says:
    April 4, 2019 at 06:38

    Oh I don’t envy you Sue!!!

    Liked by 1 person

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  4. Jessica Bakkers says:
    April 4, 2019 at 06:49

    You should reward your hard work somehow… like maybe a dip in the hot tub? 😉

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  5. Sadje says:
    April 4, 2019 at 07:15

    I feel your pain, and yes these things have to be done.

    Liked by 1 person

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  6. Auntysocial says:
    April 4, 2019 at 07:21

    Literally me just trying to get 10ft across the yard in winter.

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  7. jenanita01 says:
    April 4, 2019 at 09:29

    Sounds like the worst job in the world, but at least its only once a month!

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  9. joylennick says:
    April 4, 2019 at 09:58

    Sounds much worse than 100 lines… but so graphic, I’m sorry I had to giggle ‘seeing’ you fall in fully dressed…My imagination!!. Don’t envy you the job. x

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  10. H.R.R. Gorman says:
    April 4, 2019 at 11:12

    Is this hot tub not the kind you can drain before cleaning?

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  11. Mary Smith says:
    April 4, 2019 at 12:27

    Made me laugh, Sue, though at the same time I was wincing at the cold. What about a wet suit?

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  12. patriciaruthsusan says:
    April 4, 2019 at 12:59

    I could picture in my mind that job as you described it. The only good thing would be how it helps on hot days before the water is completely drained. Also, it’s only once a month. 😦 — Suzanne

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  13. willowdot21 says:
    April 4, 2019 at 13:19

    Yes indeed we need to be in the moment all the time. Even walking can be a danger if not thought on. I don’t mean walking in to the path of a car or stray pavement bike jockey! If l don’t concentrate on how I walk or sit I get an nasty pain.to remind me!
    I am sorry Sue I had to smile when you talked about falling in the hot tub…. I was not surprised that Nick laughed that’s suns for you!!

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  14. Smorgasbord - Variety is the Spice of Life. says:
    April 4, 2019 at 18:25

    Reblogged this on Smorgasbord Blog Magazine and commented:
    Sue Vincent has a monthly chore that has taught her many lessons and only one of those is how to clean a hot tub and not fall in. When it is freezing cold that is a definite necessity. But it also serves to teach us a valuable lesson…..about being present…

    Liked by 1 person

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  15. Anonymous says:
    April 4, 2019 at 19:46

    Ol’ Jack frost isn’t leaving for awhile..

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  16. Anonymous says:
    April 4, 2019 at 21:04

    Oh that’s a rotten job Sue, poor you, and I can feel the cold just reading about it. I love your outlook though, and it must really help to keep you going. I’ll bear your thoughts in mind when the three and a half hours per day of school runs I have to do is driving me round the twist – which is quite regular, and becoming more so if I’m honest. Still, I must be thankful for small mercies – at least I’m in doing three-and-a-half hours of school runs in a comfy, warm car. 🙂

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    • Sue Vincent says:
      April 4, 2019 at 22:41

      Good grief, that’s a lot of school running! I am so glad to be beyond that particular timetable… though to be fair, I used to enjoy the time walking the boys to school, long, long ago 😉

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  17. dgkaye says:
    April 4, 2019 at 23:41

    Ahh, yes, the glorious moments when we we’re certain we have everything under control and avert our eyes in the wrong moment. LOL 🙂 xx

    Liked by 1 person

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  18. noelleg44 says:
    April 5, 2019 at 00:29

    We love our hot tub! So good for aches and pains. But we drain it, then clean it and rinse it out, then fill it again. Of course, Hubs and I have a longer reach than you, so we don’t envy you that job. YOU need your own tub!

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  19. Eliza Waters says:
    April 5, 2019 at 02:08

    Oh, dear, sounds awful. Between the tub and the pond, I sure hope Nick appreciates all you do!

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  20. Widdershins says:
    April 5, 2019 at 02:19

    Isn’t there some local lass or lad you can sub this particular job out to? I think it’s trying to tell you something. 🙂

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    • Sue Vincent says:
      April 5, 2019 at 07:38

      We’ve enough on trying to find the cash to re-do Nick’s rotting woodwork at the moment to get his wheelchair in the garden without him going through it. I’ll be handyman for some time to come… 😉

      Liked by 1 person

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  21. Jennie says:
    April 8, 2019 at 01:37

    You are so right, Sue!

    Liked by 1 person

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