To keep warm is the most important matter in such ice-cold December weather.
Mother’s hands have chapped with several cracks in her fingers after working day by day outside recently. I smeared some chap cream on the cracks and told her not to get her hands wet. But she disregards my advice and still washes her hands and clothes behind me.
Windless day. It was good for cycling but hard for the air-borne garbage to disperse. All the villages in the distance were shrouded in smog. As I drew closer to them, the grey curtain was gone. Far in the west, a large mass of smoke ascending from an unseen chimney was held up high and refused to leave like a huge hopper.