Though it has melted now, earlier this month there was snow. Here in England, there was snow.
Also, last year, for two days, there was snow, here, in England, in Bath.
Before that, there had been no snow for (someone not at all completely reliable told me) twelve years.
So. There was snow. And last year and this year everything _everything_ shut down. Buses, libraries, schools, doctors, everything. There wasn't a lot of snow, maybe two inches at most on the ground but that two inches was enough to cancel everything.
As a fairly snow-hardy Canadian ex-pat, I've decided on two ways of looking at this:
1) Disgusted: Geez. People. It's two inches of snow. Maybe the urban infrastructures aren't prepared for such things, but, really. It's not so so scary. Not as scary as, say, all the doctors' offices being closed.
2) Celebratory: I'm not sure I believe people when they say they canceled/closed things being of the scariness of snow. I think, really, the British are just joyous little children at heart. They close the schools due to weather, so everyone should be huddled inside, right? But no, everyone is outside, building snow things, throwing snow, sliding on the snow, experiencing it. Not just children. All those doctors too. It'd be like if Edmonton declared a holiday whenever it got hotter than 25C, so we could all rush to the lakes and ice cream parlours. And, who cares if the Australians laugh. Yeah? Yeah.
1 comment:
Yeah. I vividly remember a day where the temperature dipped to 26 degrees in Townsville. I was dancing around like a crazy person because I felt free of the oppressive heat (usually over 36 degrees there) but the locals were WRAPPING THEMSELVES UP IN SLEEPING BAGS because they were so miserable in the cold.
So yes. They would think we were funny, but a day off for ice cream and wading pools would be very welcome.
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