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Well I woke up yesterday and started my morning routine as usual… shower, dress, makeup, etc… I was a bit hungover after work xmas party the previous night so you can imagine my surprise when I opened my blinds to discover a magnificent winter wonderland outside!
What happened to my street? The trees? The cars? All covered in beautiful fluffy white stuff! So yes, it had been snowing. But nothing usually stays on the ground in zone 1; I just get to hear about the winter wonderland’s happening out in the burbs from friends.
Excitement overload! I had to Skype mum and dad so I could show them; then take a walk around our common garden (see photo) and then a little stroll around Kensington Gardens. I actually contemplated walking all the way to work but my shoes were highly inappropriate and really, I’m too lazy.
But here’s my quandary – I love the snow, but it now seems highly likely that it will ruin my trip to Copenhagen. And now for the gripe: HOW can an international cosmopolitan city like London deal SO TERRIBLY with snow? Seriously, when it snows, half of our staff cannot get to work because the snow stops all the trains and closes all the roads. And also, the snow stops all the bloody planes because the airports close. What the?!? It’s absolute chaos! It snows at least once every year right?!? I’ve flown in and out of Canada in -20̊C blizzards no problemo. But a couple of centimetres of powder in London and the entire city comes crashing to a halt. The mind boggles. (Note: the exception to this rule is the tube, which becomes a wondrous beacon of warmth in the cold).
So here I am. The night before scheduled departure; checked in, packed and ready to go. Will I get my mini-break?
PS I must admit that the lazy loner inside me revels in the idea of a weekend at home with nothing to do! (Yes, very sad).
The first time is always the most exciting 
OK, so its not my first time EVER seeing snow, just for this year. But it is still exciting. In fact, all the things I said about it last year (see the post here). Soft, quiet, peaceful – even in rush rush London. It may have been freezing, but I grinned the whole way to work this morning. And I caught many other people with stupid grins on their faces too! It is unlikely that they were natives of course, such eternal pessimists (in an affectionate kind of way)!
But I tell you something; if this snow ruins my weekend mini-break to Copenhagen, I’m joining their mummble-grummbling! You’d think in a country that receives some snow every year that the public transport system would have been built to withstand some lousy snowflakes. Apparently not.
Snow covered Regent's Park
Well I couldn’t have planned it any better myself. Snow in London; and not just light flurries, we’ve had nights of non stop blizzards dumping huge, white, fluffy flakes. Step outside and you can feel the cold hit your lungs; brisk, clean and crisp. Things happen for a reason and I think London wanted to officially welcome the big Canuck to the city. In the wake of the downed spirits, exhausted souls and the usual January depression from the aftermath of the silly season, Mother Nature gave me a little something to smile about. In some parts of the UK it snowed over 12 inches in a night – its starting to feel a little like my first home.
My office has informally nominated me as their Snow Consultant. For a fee, I can advise on everything from the best way to get your car out of the snow in the morning, the right kind of shoes to wear to avoid slipping and breaking a shoulder on the icy sidewalks, or even some advice and/or opinions on the current state of roads, infrastructure and snowplough governance in the UK.
These are all the basic and fundamental learning’s of any true Canadian, but for some parts of Europe and London’s many visitors from the southern hemisphere it’s veering a little more into unchartered territory. In fact, I was blown away when the country came to a standstill with the arrival of the white stuff. Transportation has become even more unreliable and many rail, air and road services were cancelled. We have stocked up on our canned goods, candles, and red wine; we’re ready for the lock in – bring it.
In the late 1600’s to the early 1800’s London and Europe was hit with a mini ice age which actually froze the Thames. So, if I get lucky and this Global Warming thing pans out, I could swap my tube ride into Canary Wharf with a new mode of transportation – skating.
Before I sign out, I’ll caveat my farewell in hopes that this country can find it in her heart to get organised on the snow management front so we can enjoy this great weather.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!
MM
In some ways London is so modern and advanced compared to my home town – we have nothing as convenient as an Oyster Card, Online shopping is years ahead and London embraces multiculturalism in a way I wish the rest of the world would. On the other hand, there are some areas – I guess because it is harder to change a society that’s been around so long – where London is still living in the past. I’m surprised how much of London is still paper based (banks especially) and I find companies still like sending letters, rather than emails.
But a lot of this slow-to-change stuff is great actually, and one total charmer is the regular news updates from The Evening Standard. Basically The Evening Standard has little stalls set up at the entrance to every tube station where they hand out (used to sell*) their paper every evening. Throughout the day however they are constantly updating their customers on the latest headlines using their blue and white signboards. The one I saw today was printed, but usually they are just written out by the stall guy in permanent marker.
I keep coming back to this concept of London as a big bad city, but things like this – a major circulation paper using a bunch of blokes writing on big pieces of paper as a major selling tool – make me think of London as almost romantic. And the guys are so…. British. The ones I see are big burly white guys wearing cabbie hats and sporting thick accents – from somewhere I’m yet to discover in the UK. It’s beautiful, personal, brash, gritty (what a gay word). It’s something you would never see in Sydney because we didn’t exist in the time where paperboys cried out the headlines, we never had that growth to go through. Plus it just doesn’t seem very economically viable in this day and age – imagine suggesting in today’s corporate boardroom that your advertising budget should be spent in this way. Well, I think Sydney missed out. Absolutely LOVE IT.
Of course today’s headlines are all about the forecast snow dump expected from tomorrow. Stay tuned!
* For anyone who’s interested and doesn’t already know, up until October 2009 The Evening Standard cost 50p and The London Paper and The London Lite were distributed for free (there are the papers famous for being so hot off the press you get black fingers from reading them). These free London dailies ceased publication in around November 2009 (Friday 13th November for the London Lite) and The Evening Standard took up the gap in the market.
Yesterday it got very cold – a new level of cold for my time in London. And what do you know? Today it SNOWED!!! I can’t honestly say I was dreaming of a white Christmas – it’s London after all – but it was a bit of a monumental day.
And no, before you ask it’s not the first time I’ve seen snow (and yes, I was asked) – I lived in Canada for a couple of years and I love to ski. But this is the first time in a long time I’ve just been going about my normal day and been surprised by a snowfall. Everyone else at work seemed pretty excited too, but I was the only one who walked over to the window to watch it fall.
Because a snowfall is beautiful; a world gone quiet, a world slowed down. Softly, softly. Delicate. Pretty special in such a racy city if you ask me.
It didn’t stay, not around Oxford Circus anyway. By the time I left work I was walking in the rain. However; according to the BBC there’s a fair bit on the way. Fingers crossed for snow day! (Do you get snow days if you are a grown-up worker?)
louashton
