Your article on how to cope with winter (17 December) left one point out. Raynaud’s syndrome causes sufferers to lose blood circulation in their hands in cold weather. The best help I have found for it is buying a couple of HotRox – little metal eggs that can be charged up to release heat and restore blood supply. Bring on the snowballs!
Clare Passingham
Oxford

Re your 10 ways to thrive as the temperature drops, Shelley nailed it in one sentence: “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
Jacqueline Noble
Dorchester, Dorset

Re beavers spotted in Berkshire recently (Letters, 11 December), in an excavation I conducted at Ramsbury, Berkshire, in the 1970s, beaver bones were found in a ninth-century context: 1,200 years ago, the valley must have been filled with beaver ponds.
Jeremy Haslam
Batheaston, Somerset

Re the Honda Jazz life stage (Letters, 16 December), I recently took possession of my fourth Honda Jazz – my stage is 15 years and counting. I fear I’m approaching the “not driving at night” stage.
Susan Treagus
Manchester

Reading of Steve Clarke’s “lager, Aga, Saga, gaga” stages of life (Letters, 15 December), Maga came to mind as the natural progression.
Paula McKinney
Cockermouth, Cumbria

Given Steve Clarke’s four stages of life, I doubt if he can remember much about his childhood.
Toby Wood
Peterborough