The amount of times the s-word was said at home this Christmas was unreal. If we had a swear box, there would be enough in there to go to Hawaii by now. By the s-word, of course, I mean snow. I remember how excited I would be when it snowed only seven or so years ago, because it meant a day off school. Now, however, it’s just a nuisance and only ‘beautiful’ on the first day.
The Infamous Yellow Box
For those of you who were lucky enough to have escaped the UK for sunnier horizons over Christmas, we had two heavy snowfalls in December and January in the South-East alone. Britain was battling the worse snowfall in twenty-three years (or fifty, depending on what paper you read). We were ‘paralysed’, ‘disrupted’ and ‘in chaos’. It seems it takes very little to bring this country to a state of paralysed chaos. Debates over inches, feet and salt were rampant, probably the only time the Salt Union (I kid you not!) ever really become major players in Britain.
We were bombarded with stories of people trapped in their cars for twelve hours, cars being deserted in their hundreds, trains and buses having to suspend service and (shock horror) horse racing that had to be abandoned at Southwell and Hexham. I’m sure everyone knows of someone who had to abandon their car and walk home, or even had to do it themselves.
Luckily, being quite a cautious family, we followed the popular advice of not travelling ‘unless absolutely necessarily’ and were spared a cross-country hike through the snow drifts of Hertfordshire. Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean that you are guaranteed an uneventful January. A friend of mine had stayed at home, and still had her parked car rammed by someone who didn’t heed the advice.
The national papers are, naturally, an important part of the event and help us get into the mood; from the classically cheesy headlines like ‘BRRRITAIN!’ (Daily Mirror) and the stoic nostalgic, blitz spirit of ‘WE’LL COPE – AT A PUSH’ (The Daily Mail), the papers always have the monopoly on melodrama. The prize has to go to The Times who made an attempt for sanity by relating the snow to some real news, Iceland refusing to repay its loans. This non-snow news was second only to a piece assuring us that Doctor Who is not anti-ginger, which I’m sure brightened the day of many stranded individuals.
The argument is understandable at least – Britain doesn’t get much snow, so we do not have the procedures in place to deal with it. At least, we don’t get much snow in the South-East or anywhere near London. Scotland, which is frequently buried in snow, is apparently fighting for survival on its own. But, for those of us who are London centric, we’ve suffered two years in a row now… maybe it’s time to reconsider what a British winter entails?
There has been heavy snowfall three times in two years and they have always been accompanied by uproar on BBC Front Page. It’s as though, while being trapped at home by the snow, the only plausible activity is sending photos to the BBC. The ‘Your Pictures’ section was flooded with pictures of snowmen, snow covered streets, snow covered animals… The Guardian website even had a ‘SNOW DAY LIVE BLOG’ with up to the minute information on the snow, with reports from people writing in with the relevant photos and videos. Like you can’t get enough pictures and videos of falling snow. Also included an audio file (the title of which I quote directly because I simply couldn’t believe it myself) – ‘Radiokate has just recorded the ‘grrauchhy’ sound of walking through snow in Walthamstow, north-east London’. Presumably for people living in places where it hasn’t snowed and are missing out on the fun. I, frankly, had more than enough of the ‘grrauchhy’ sound of walking through snow while sweeping the driveway in December.
While I don’t want to seem blazè about the fact that the snow has caused some dreadful problems for people over the last two months, I have to ask if I’m the only person who finds this all a little embarrassing. Our somewhat morbid fascination with snow – both the wonder and the dread of it is probably looked on as a little ridiculous by countries like Russia and Switzerland. Since I don’t want to get into a rant about Global Warming and it’s (blatantly obvious) effects on our weather, I’ll just say that snowy Decembers and Januarys seem more and more likely in the future. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for our white Christmas to become old news.
