The Big Freeze

The United Kingdom is in the worst cold snap since the 1960’s, and we have had more snow than we have seen in over twenty years. Coming from Canada, I’m quite used to snow - and cold for that matter - but it is entirely different situation here, mainly because we don’t have the resources to cope with it.

To give you an idea, the county council for our area - an area of over 400 square miles - does not have enough gritting trucks and snowploughs available. Supplies of grit and salt are never adequate, and basically, even a few inches of snow can cause just about everything to grind to a halt. The ten inches we had on Tuesday night managed to snow us in more thoroughly than we’ve ever been snowed in before.

The scenery is absolutely gorgeous up behind our house (top photograph), but as you can see from the photo below it, the roads going out of our subdivision are not cleared. I’m standing right at the bottom of the road our house is on, and the “main road” is on my left. Our road itself is nearly impassable. The few cars that have managed to get through have compacted the snow, and the colder it gets, the icier it gets. My husband, son and a friend have just tried to clear part of the road coming down out of our driveway, in the hopes of maybe getting out tomorrow. But even if my husband can get out, the roads leading up to the motorways (which are cleared) are really slippery and dangerous. Not good.

The cold is a huge issue here, as snow is bringing down power lines and leaving folks without electricity and heat. I’m so grateful to be in a new subdivision with underground power lines. We are warm and dry here, and feeling very blessed. I feel so sorry for the thousands of people who are not, especially as they are predicting temperatures right down to minus 20 Celsius tonight. It got down to minus 16 last night, and even we were cold in our nice warm house, with the heating on. I also worry about the homeless people, and pray they are in shelters.

I am a bit of a squirrel, and always stock up on food and provisions before the winter. My parents did that in Canada when I was growing up and it’s just kind of ingrained. For once, it has come in really handy. I have not even had to go to the grocery store (it would have been a long, cold walk!) and I am glad as I have read they are really busy. Apparently people are starting to panic buy with the cold weather predicted to last for at least two weeks.

As for me, I’m just grateful to be warm and dry and have my family at home with me. I may have missed my exercise class today, but I got lots of exercise shovelling our driveway! And as long as everyone stays safe and warm, I really don’t mind the snow at all.

The Snowy Day

When I was a very little girl growing up in Canada, this book by Ezra Jack Keats was one of my favourites. I vividly remember it being read to us in the school library when I was in Kindergarten, during one of our forays out of the classroom and into the greater school. It was the early 1970‘s, and as I recall, it was a snowy day. I sat with the other children, wearing my (very fashionable) blue cat’s eye glasses and my “listening hat” as our teacher used to call it, totally caught up in the story of Peter and his wonder at the snow.

There was a certain aura to those winter afternoons in the library, a kind of cosy reverie that descended upon us there as we listened to the librarian read us stories. As well as “The Snowy Day”, we were introduced to Robert McCloskey’s “Make Way For Ducklings”, Virginia Lee Burton’s “Katy and the Big Snow” and “Little Blue and Little Yellow” by Leo Lionni among others.

I got to thinking about “A Snowy Day” today because it is a snowy day here, the snowiest I have ever seen in England in the over twenty years I have lived here. I may also have thought about it because today I am missing my Mom, who died two years ago today. You see, it wasn’t just in the school library that I enjoyed stories and books. My Mom introduced me to books at a very young age, and instilled in me a love for them that I still have today. My Mom loved to read to me, although I don’t ever recall her being an avid reader herself. She used to take me to the “bookmobile” (mobile library van) that came to a street near us once a week. We’d meet up with my friend and her Mom who lived three doors down from us, and after we chose some books, we’d go back to either her house or mine. While our moms had a coffee and chatted, we get some time to play together. We all, moms and kids alike, looked forward to the day the bookmobile came.

Isn’t it funny how our minds work? It’s amazing how one thought leads to another and can pull you back years in a millisecond, to a place where nothing has changed. It’s a place where everyone we ever loved still lives, where the sights, smells and feelings of our childhood are still as vividly alive today as they were all those years ago. For a few minutes I was back there today - all because of the snow, the memory of a book and my wonderful Mom.

Here’s some photographs of our snowy day:-




While I may be embarrassed that this much snow has brought the UK to a grinding halt, it is beautiful, and there is something lovely about having a snow day. My husband has been working all day in the study, but it is really nice just to have him here, with all of us safe and warm under one roof. But I really do think it is time councils in the South of England considered the purchase of a few snow ploughs!