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Monday, February 04, 2019


Snow (at least for a while)

After much chatter in the media it finally snowed here on Friday. It wasn’t much to write home about – around 3 inches at most – despite snowing (lightly) for over 12 hours. Temperature wise it was just a few degrees above zero (Centigrade/Celsius) with a light breeze so, all in all, not too bad. I checked my local bus company website and everything looked OK so I went to work as expected. When I got there – without a single problem – I found that out of a team of ten I was one of three to make it in. But at least things were rather quiet and I got a lot done.

It doesn’t snow very often here so people do seem to get a bit overexcited when it does. Where I was born/lived most of my life (around 140 miles north as the crow flies) it snowed a LOT more so I’ve pretty hardened to it. In fact I remember when I was at college (doing my A levels – University entrance exams basically – for the third time) walking there in a blizzard and nearly deciding to curl up in the snow whilst the worst of it passed over. Luckily my survival instinct kicked in and I turned around and went home before my brain literally froze in my head. I learned later that around 50 miles south of there was the coldest temperature ever recorded in North Wales up to that point. I can well believe it!

Getting on a bit now I don’t like snow as much as I used to. These days I worry about falling badly on ice and breaking something important. Naturally as a child this was never a consideration and, as children do, I threw myself around in snow with complete abandon. Back in those days too I felt the cold a lot less and cared about being cold even less than that. But there are many things about snow that I still enjoy a great deal. Maybe not so weirdly (as it seems to be shared by a significant number of people I’ve spoken to) I love the sound of walking in snow – that almost compressed truncated crunching sound. It’s hard to describe but I think we all know it when we hear it. Then, of course, is the pleasure in making and throwing snowballs and making snowmen (can you still call them that?). So when I left the house on Friday to first thing I did was to scoop up a handful of snow to test it. It was GOOD snow. You could tell straight away that it had a good consistency. Not too dry and powdery (terrible for snowballs) and not too wet (although wet snow is GREAT for making slushbombs!). I actually envied my boss building a snowman with his little boy and his wife on Friday when he came home from school. The pictures on his phone made me smile a lot.

On my way home – after ignoring for most of the day advice to go home before it got worse -  I noticed what must have been 20-30 snowmen of various styles and sizes on my 30 minute return trip. A lot of people had been having a lot of fun out there. By Saturday it had all started to melt. I avoiding going out because the melting snow had frozen to a glass like consistency over the pavement (that’s sidewalk to my American readers) so I decided that discretion was the better part etc… By Sunday only patches remained and by today only dirty slush hidden in corners would alert you to the fact that we’d had snow at all. The forecast for the rest of the week is mild with regular light rain. So that might have been our first and last bout of snow. You never can quite know though. This is England and the weather here makes up its own rules. I’ve known snow in March and into April. Apparently snow has even been recorded in JUNE but I can’t quite believe that! But we’ll see. Maybe next time I’ll build my own snowman….. 

7 comments:

VV said...

We’ve been having a few days of warm up here, so our foot or so of snow is almost all melted. Now we’re left with a slushy deep mess and some die hard sheets of ice. I too fear falling as I get older.

mudpuddle said...

about an inch last nite... footprints of elk, deer, coyotes? or foxes, rabbits, lots of tiny birds; maybe a raven - lots of them around - and dog (Albert)... no cougar or bear yet this year... but they're some where around here...

Stephen said...

We were threatened with snow last week, but the temperature falling and the moisture didn't line up. The predictions were so OFF that a weatherman with a big facebook following had to make a "Er, well, about that..." kind of apologetic post.

Glad you got a little to enjoy!

Judy Krueger said...

I grew up in a temperate climate; New Jersey. Then I lived in Michigan for many years. Lots of snow, blizzards, icy "pavement" and roads. Now I live in 'sunny" California. Snow is only on mountain tops seen from my home. People here are weaklings when it comes to weather. Truth be told, I do not miss the snow, the warming up of the car, the de-icing the windows, the extra outer wear, etc. I have become a weather wimp. I enjoyed your post.

CyberKitten said...

@ V V: I definitely hear you about the falling bit. I've know people who had an apparently simple fall and things did not go well..... Must invest in those spiked slip on things... [muses] ...and possibly hip air bags!

@ Mudpuddle: Quite a menagerie! Not quite such a mixture here - mostly cats & dogs (although cats tend to be more sensible and stay indoors) with the occasional urban fox. I do LOVE being the first across some virgin snow though. Makes me feel like an intrepid explorer.

@ Stephen: I can't imagine snow in Selma. When was the last time you had some? Is it a regular occurrence or something people talk about for years afterwards?

@ Judy: There's quite a difference between the North & South of England despite only being a few hundred miles apart. I went to Uni about 100 miles south of Scotland. A friend from London was completely bemused by the 'strange' weather that the rest of us had grown up with. Much amusement was caused...!

Sarah @ All The Book Blog Names Are Taken said...

I love snow so much (I am from Minnesota, northern Midwest) and we keep getting missed by all the big storm systems moving through. We've maybe had a total of 4 inches it seems, the whole winter. it always misses us and I hate it. The only thing that did not miss us so far was the super freezing temps, when wind chills reached -35/-40F

CyberKitten said...

Sorry about the lack of snow... but those temperatures are CRAZY!.... Global Warming *IS* a Myth!!!! [rotflmao]