It was 7am when I was rudely awoken this morning. The noise emanating from my mobile phone pierced my ears with so much annoyance it had to be stopped. It wasn’t the alarm though, but instead a text message from my boss.
“Take it easy driving in to work today.”
My boss, being ever such the clever person that he is, decided to be nice and show concern for my safety, as I travelled into work. At the time though, 7am, I didn’t want to know what the message meant and what relevance it had to me. Instead, I rolled over, pulled the duvet over me to shield me from the strange coldness in my room, and went back to sleep.
An hour later and I awoke again. This time to the piercing sound of my alarm, once again emanating from the torrid device that refuses to leave me alone. As I unraveled myself from the bed covers, I felt the coldness again. The weather had been reasonably nice in recent days, so to feel another cold snap was a little harsh on the senses.
I stumbled into the bathroom and jumped under the shower. The shower was very quickly followed by an intense display of putting on clothes as fast as possible, such is the bitterness of many British bathrooms in the winter. A slice of toast and a cup of coffee later and I was ready to pack the laptop into its bag, gather my wallet and keys and head out to the car.
Upon opening my front door the earlier text message, which had since been forgotten about, suddenly made an awful lot of sense. Everything was a few inches under snow. Looking at the time, a few words that cannot be repeated spilled from my mouth, and then the trudge down the buried car began. Several more of these unrepeatable words passed before I was able to leave for work.
It was then I realised that living just outside of the city limits is great for most of the time. The one time when it is not though is after a snow shower. The road I live on failed to see any grit, and the left turn at the end that joins the steep hill was not welcoming for my car. Even in second gear the poor thing was still struggling for traction and spinning on the spot. The TC light has never seen so much action.
Once passed this obstacle the journey was thankfully uneventful, although full of concentration and gentle application of the controls.
Snow is great as a rare occurrence, but not when it comes as a surprise. And the lesson I learned today? Open the curtains in the morning.
Monday, 2nd February, 2009 at 11:01pm
I won’t be surprised (given how it’s gone from no snow at 5pm to 2 inches deep at 11pm) to be the only member of my team to make it into the office tomorrow. It’s a 2 mile walk – but one I do every day anyway.
At least I don’t have to drive!
Monday, 2nd February, 2009 at 11:12pm
I saw your photos on Twitter/TwitPic, it doesn’t look particularly car-friendly where you are.
I kind of have to go in though, as I’m wrapping up various jobs before my holiday from work, starting Wednesday. And given how the past two weeks have been, I need all the work time I can get to complete everything on time. Why does everything conspire against me right before a holiday!?
Have fun having the office to yourself tomorrow. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?
Tuesday, 3rd February, 2009 at 6:58am
Maybe try watching a weather forecast Ollie lol
Tuesday, 3rd February, 2009 at 8:10am
It’s not actually too bad today – 2inches of lying snow, yes the office is quiet, but not deserted. main roads appear to be passable down here (walking was OK too)
Tuesday, 3rd February, 2009 at 8:18am
I’ve always said, “what’s the point of weather forecasts? I can just look out of a window!” But it seems I can’t even do that right!
Good to hear.
Friday, 6th February, 2009 at 5:46am
If it makes you feel any better, your experience as described above has been played out at least 3 times for me this winter. It snows a bit more over here than over there I think, but the real killer is the cold- it’s around 2 F at my house at the moment!
My best day was in mid-December: I work for the public library, which means we try to stay open whenever possible. I came in for my 9AM- 1PM shift, and around 10 our department head tells us we’re closing at 11. My car had about 5 times as much snow as your photo above, but at least my route home (mostly downhill) was good to drive. On the flipside of that, in early January we were delayed opening for an hour due to snow, and I never bothered to call in and check on it- an hour of standing around reading magazines, followed by a VERY slow shift
Friday, 6th February, 2009 at 1:40pm
Oh definitely. I somehow started talking about the weather on Christine’s site a few days ago, about how New York City is the same latitude as Spain, which is further South than the UK, obviously. Yet you guys get really cold winters, and thanks to the Gulf Stream, we get more moderate winters.
I was in Connecticut in January 2004 and the only thing that really stands out in my memory of that trip was the intense cold. In the UK it is more humid, so although the wind can bite a bit, the dry wind I experienced in America, combined with the sub-zero temperatures cut through my body like knives. It was possibly the coldest I have ever felt.
Thing is, you guys get that kind of weather every year, whereas this level snowfall hasn’t happened to the UK in about 15 years. And because we’re crap with unexpected weather, the UK kind of fell apart for a couple of days.
Hope your house warms up a bit. 2F, that’s like -16C! I will complain less when the temperature drops below 0C, I promise!
Sunday, 8th February, 2009 at 6:28am
I hear your pain, I hope you guys in the UK don’t go through what we did here on the West Coast of Canada. The snow started about 1 week before Christmas and 12 snow storms in 2 1/2 – 3 weeks later we were left with anywhere from 3-4 feet of snow, depending on how high you live. Main roads were that are 3 lanes were down to only 1 due to abandoned cars and monster snow banks but they were fine to drive on and if you ventured onto any side streets you were s.o.l. The weather forcasters are calling for snow here starting Feb 8 for 3 days. Damn I hate snow. Stay warm.
Tuesday, 10th February, 2009 at 6:10am
Thankfully, the house has never been very cold, but that can change as soon as I open the front door in the morning
I don’t think it was quite that cold when I wrote that, but it was still in the single numbers. In any event, several heavy snowfalls a year are comonplace in these parts, and the state and local communities are well-equipped…most of the time. We had one exception to that back on Valentine’s Day 2007- over a foot of ice-packed snow shut down the Interstate highways around here for 2 or 3 days in a few cases, in conditions very similar to what Aitch is describing .
I like to describe this area as a temperate climate- hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and reasonably nice inbetween. It was freezing when I wrote that, but in a few months i’ll have the AC on in here when the temp is roasting outside.
Enjoy the snow if there is any left