Postcards From Across the Pond

Yeah, we’ve got snow, for about the first time in ten years.

When I first moved here, and marveled at the lack of snow, friends would tell me stories along the lines of: “When I was a child, we had snow all the time, and it was so deep it came up to my armpits.”

And I don’t doubt that’s true. I just think their perception is a little skewed.

_{Me and my sister, in 1958, with the snow up to, and surpassing, my armpits. I was, however, only 3 feet tall at the time.}

Along about 2008 or so, we started to get snow, and not the 1 cm kind that put everyone in a tizzy and melted by noon. We often had significant amounts (okay, significant for here) that hung around for a bit. This went on for about four years, and then the snowless winters returned.

As a result, out in the park on Monday morning, there were children as old as 10 or 11 who were seeing snow for the first time, and people aged 18 to 20 might very well—and truthfully—been telling them: “When I was a child, we had snow all the time, and it was so deep it came up to my armpits.”

This snow, though not very big on quantity, is making up for it in longevity. Unlike the other snows I have known, this one is sticking around, and this is because it has been below freezing for a week now, and it isn’t ending any time soon. While this has been a welcome change—in that I can now put on one of my many jumpers and leave it on, instead of finding that the sun has come out and it’s 60 degrees (15.5 Celsius) and, to avoid heatstroke, I need to take it off and put a short-sleeved shirt back on—it’s worrying because I do not want to experience an “upstate New York style” winter after living two decades in a tropical paradise, and the UK has form.

In 1947, there was a winter of apocalyptic proportions, unmatched until 1963, when snow fell and fell and fell and overstayed its welcome and caused havoc for months. And in searching for photos I could steal off the web to illustrate this, I found that 1984 wasn’t a walk in the park, either.

They were, undeniably inconvenient, but in 1947 they were still using horses, and even in 1984, there wasn’t the delicate—and under-maintained—services we have now. Snow of that magnitude and duration would cause more damage to our infrastructure, economy and general health than another five years of Tory rule.

Therefore, I am hoping the promised end of this cold snap will arrive as predicted, and that no additional snow will fall between now and then.

I’m just not cut out for another Upstate Winter.