The last few days have been cold, dry, and windy. My fingers have become sore, with cracked skin at the tips and some joints. Part of this might come from tussles with the dog, but I reckon it's mostly dry skin. A mountain man would scoff but a city boy like me seeks a remedy.

So should I butter up, in the manner of a Handmaiden? Better yet to raid Mrs The Fyd's supplies of lotions, moisturizers, revitalizers, and their ilk. My hands and face are now slippery and supple, and the soreness and cracking are subsiding.

For my most recent birthday Mrs The Fyd bought me a men's face care kit - special soap, "scruffing" lotion (for removing dead skin, one presumes), and moisturizer. This was prompted by my whining, while viewing Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, that I had been deprived of "cosmeceuticals" all my life.

Without such advanced products, a life-time of received hetero wisdoms about a man's toilet being properly confined to shaving materials and tooth care would certainly lead my visage to ruin. The untreated face being ravaged by exposure until a leprous fringe remained draped over an insensate, desparate skull would be the end result.

So these may just be the beginnings of the multiplying ways in which I am becoming more like a woman.