A study in epic grandeur or rivers of turnip blood?

I'm great lover of idiom, be it French, English or anybody else's language. Now and again the French come up with a good one like: "Il a du sang de navet", which literally translates as "he has turnip blood" and means someone who always feels the cold.

I couldn't immediately think of an English equivalent. If, like me, you come from Staffordshire, you would of course say "nesh" but it's definitely a dialect word. I don't know how widely it's used but I doubt it ranges far outside the frozen, desolate and possibly turnip-ridden wastes of northern England.

Of course, in speaking of turnips, the prophet may have merely been making a general reference to the producers of all root vegetables, and possibly even onions, but I know exactly what he meant, when the first really cold, dank bone-chilling rain of winter set in this week.

To capture the feeling of the moment, I offer this imposing view of the sun forcing a passage through the late-afternoon mountain murk, hurriedly snatched from the hallowed slopes of Anorakville-le-sacré, alias Rennes-le-château.

I have to admit that I am a devout unbeliever with regard to our local centre for sword/sorcery/hidden treasure/runes/codes/Mary Magdalen/the Holy Grail/and possibly our old friends the Giant Green Lizards who will take over the world in 2012 or sometime definitely, maybe, possibly, never or at least after our teabreak with chocolate digestives.

But if you insist on being gnostic about it, the one Great Truth that I do recognise about our little shrine for the intelligent enthusiast/hyper anorak/casual sightseer/terminally bonkers is that on a wet afternoon in December, it's bloody cold there. Holy Grail? I'd prefer a nice cup of tea.