SparkyFizz

Squirrel life...

A very strange week...

The snow is subsiding now, but it's still very slippy everywhere.  I feel that it's been such a strange and unexpected week.  I can't remember seeing so much snow since I lived in London, but maybe my memory is poor.

This is my 12' (30cms) ruler on the table  outside.  You can see that we had almost 12'' of snow!  This is how it looks in context...

Now I know that in my hometown of Burnley this isn't such an unusual sight, but I can assure you that it is here!  It's also been very beautiful, icicles everywhere, but chaotic - gutters falling down, my very large shrubs have fallen over with the weight of snow, and as all the schools shut down we were forced to take stock, slow down and wait.

The boys had a great time...!  Not such a bad thing really.  So now I'm totally disorganized.  All the shopping and Christmas planning is awry, but I've never been good at meticulous planning, so why worry?

South Eastern Trains ground to a halt.  That wasn't so bad, but the lack of information was shocking.  My husband kept making an effort to go to work, walking to the station, no buses, but when he arrived there was never any information.  He simply didn't know if a train was ever going to come.  So he gave up and stayed at home too.  Twitter became the only reliable source of information regarding train journeys, and many were very funny.  The newspapers had fun with the cartoons, this is Matt from the Daily Telegraph...

One train out of London to Kent took 19 hours and people had to stay on the train overnight!

They must find us so amusing in Sweden or Chicago.

Snow, snow, snow...

I was so amazed today to see the TV footage of the student demonstrations in Trafalgar Square.  There was no snow... and yet 10 miles down the road, which is officially Kent, this is my garden...

Extraordinary difference.  Here all the schools have closed and the roads are chaotic.  This morning I set out gung-ho style, wondering what all the fuss was about.  I swiped the snow from the car, set off, determined to get on with my day. As I turned out of my drive, I thought the cars were being a little too cautious, until I skidded from side to side across the road and immediately saw two cars slide into each other!  Of course there's no turning back is there?  Who would consider a three point turn in those conditions?  I could feel the ice crunching under the tyres, and not a gritter in sight.  

My youngest child  finished school early but had to walk home a few miles, no buses and no possibility of driving to pick him up.  He loved it, of course, snowball fights, wet through, but along the way he and his group of friends helped several motorists by pushing their cars.  

This evening trains out of London to Kent and Surrey are not doing well...

I think tomorrow we will stay home, make orange and clove pomanders, play in the snow and tuck into all the lovely food I stocked up on today.