Two years ago he had volunteered to help his local church, which was providing food and shelter for a score of homeless men. This Christmas it is he who is alone, cold and hungry

A wry smile crossed my face as I opened the curtains this morning. Overnight, Jack Frost had etched exquisite images of ferns, leaves and grass on the inside of my windows. It took my mind back to my earliest years, before my parents installed central heating in the family home, and images magically appeared on the window on cold mornings and I dressed myself huddling around a green enamel paraffin heater. Such stoves are no longer available – victims, perhaps, of health and safety regulations. So, today, I have to make do with cradling a cup of hot coffee (just half a spoonful of granules, so as to eke out the jar’s life) in my hands.

It is not that my flat lacks central heating: cold radiators hang forlornly on the walls, but, a few years shy of my sixty-fifth birthday, I am ineligible for “winter fuel payment” and face the same conundrum as many older people – heat or food? I am frequently told that the cold can always be offset by the donning of extra layers of clothes and so Michelin Man takes shape as I dress myself with vest, shirt, sweater, fleece and, finally, a rather threadbare sports jacket. With the chill in my body starting to dissipate, I can sit and enjoy the impressionistic image of the sun shining through the frosted windows created by the chronic cataracts in my eyes.