Snow

You may have been informed that we had a little snow last week (for some of you, this information will have come by way of snow burial, for others the BBC). I struggle to explain to you snowless people (and Englanders, no matter how many centimetres more than usual may have fallen in recent years, you are still snowless) just how much snow fell. 30.5 inches doesn't quite do it, nor does three feet (or thereabouts). It felt like a joke, except it was (is) everywhere and shoveling it felt like an exercise in futility. Especially when Jeremy started shoveling it off the roof, onto the deck and I was supposed to move the roof snow and the deck snow, elsewhere. Except that elsewhere quickly got filled up with snow. My solution was to get onto the roof also, as shoveling from a roof top is slightly more fun than from the ground, buoyed as I was by a sense of hilarity and farce and there's the minor thrill of the possibility of falling off the roof (which is muted by the fact that there's a mattress of snow to land on so not massively risky).

I learned this, last weekend: Snow days, in principle, are awesome. Because, in principle, they involve a day off of work sat on the couch in a snuggie with coffee and my cat and catching up on crappy TV because Jeremy's office doesn't dole out snowdays (and Jeremy moans about crappy TV that isn't animated). And that does happen and it is wonderful, but the snowday principle forgets to include the caveat of the three days of shoveling that must follow. And the week or more of walking a mile to the train and doubling ones commute because there's no parking at the office. And the necessity of wellies everywhere and always, because the icy mush on the ground pretends to be shallow but it is not.

I guarantee I will have forgotten this caveat as soon as the next snowday roles around.



Below is my weekend of Snow in pictures.

Day 1 - wake up to no work and a blizzard. Watch TV with Tronky
 thinking snow days are the best thing in the world ever. 

Day 2 - wake up to more snow than
 you've ever seen in your life ever. 

Jeremy suggests running 10 miles in it. Funny. 

Spend the rest of day 2 shoveling / watching Jeremy shovel. 

Jeremy didn't seem to see that building a
snow fort is just more, optional, shoveling. 

Spend the evening drinking hot-toddies

And eating cheese scones 

And soup with homemade bread

Finish by snuggling with Tronky

Day three was indistinguishable from day two, except that any snow novelty had thoroughly disappeared, there was less whiskey and more running 10 miles on a treadmill. Actually, day three was awful. Day four was pretty much just as awesome as day one though so it was all OK in the end.