Snow Days

Dear all,

Of all the many things I will miss when we eventually move back to the USA, there is no doubt I will miss the English winters.  The temps are relatively mild; I continue to walk everywhere.  The absence of forced air heat means my skin is not dried and itchy all season, my fingers don’t crack, and because there is moisture in the air, my hair remains compliant with the laws of gravity. 

Having said that, I understand that our winter weather has made the news back home.  The snow here has been laughable and, honestly, a little exhausting.  The United Kingdom cannot cope.  Here are a few examples of what life has been like this past week:

Last Tuesday, London came to a stand still, all buses and the Underground stopped.  They had about eight inches.  In Cheltenham, though, we got about two or three inches and most people did not show up for school or work.  It melted the following day.

Thursday and Friday, when we got four inches of snow, Jim could not go to work.  The motorway was impassable both Thursday and Friday.  More than half the children did not show up for school.  Our lucky kids walked to school.

Our postman could not deliver mail (his bike couldn’t make it in the snow).  The grocery store shelves were bare.  Friday, Jim and I took advantage of the additional day off and trudged to our favorite café.  The vegetables couldn’t be delivered.  Neither could the wine (it’s February…the detox is over).  

Saturday morning (the children go to school on Saturdays), I kept the children home until the mid morning thaw because it was too dangerous to walk on the sidewalks.  Drivers, unable to control their cars, were sliding up onto the sidewalks.  Don’t forget, this is FOUR inches of snow!

Everyone it seems, even those rascals who would normally be committing knife crimes (very popular in the UK), was out playing in the snow.  I have never seen so many snowmen.  There were a few memorable ones, but my favorite was at a nearby pub.  There was a snowman, quite lifelike, sitting on a chair, arm resting on a café table, with his hand around a full Guinness.  At the senior school, there was a fabulous polar bear made of snow. 

Sadly, irreverent prep school miscreants (their mothers should be ashamed) had to ruin the festive nature of the snow by building an enormous replica of, umm…Wedding Tackle.  Meat and Two Veg.  You know…male bits.  They were smart enough to erect (so to speak) this towering Man Garden away from the school buildings, further down the cricket and rugby pitches (supervising children is not one of the British prep school’s strong points).  The Willy went without notice for a satisfying amount of time (a day!), in full view of passing cars, until the administration from Cheltenham General Hospital, which is directly across the street, called Cheltenham College’s administration to notify them of the misconduct.   Also to tell them that the hospital’s patients were beginning to complain.  

As you can imagine, there was a surge of school pride.  The prank will live in boarding school infamy.

Sunday, a classmate of A’s went sledding (or sledging, as they say here) with her father.  They collided with another sled (sledge) and the father broke his back in TWO places.

To say that the British cannot handle snow is an understatement.

A week later, the snowmen look like ET’s Mini-Me, the snowdrops are blooming once again and the daffodils are pushing up.  People have already begun planting pansies in window boxes and there is daylight at 6:00 pm.  We may not get a warm summer, but in February when the flowers are promising to bloom, I never seem to mind.

With love from England, 

T-Ann