Thermals and fleece

 The last week's been cold, unusually so, and while our house is warm enough it does take time for the heat pump to warm the house thoroughly in the morning, which means my winter trick of layering and using thermal t-shirts as a base layer, a jumper of some sort and a fleece gilet.

Some of the thermal layers are merino - after all Australia did once ride on the sheep's back and sometimes they are synthetic, and though I hesitate to mention it, I'm still using some Rohan thermals I bought over twenty five years ago for winter bike riding in England.

And again, while sometimes I wear a wool jumper. sometimes I wear a fleece jumper, which again have amazing longevity - again I've still got two or three that I bought when we still lived in York.

But everything wears out - entropy and all that, and I have noticed that some of the older fleece jumpers are perhaps a little thinner that they once were. Some of it's wear, and some undoubtedly is from washing - and fleece does need more frequent washing than wool as it seems to get smelly more quickly than wool.

And while I might feel good, and certainly did feel good about wearing fleece which after all is made out of recycled plastic bottles, there's a whole question about microplastics, and whether over the years my use of fleece has been helping pollute the environment ...