Winter wonderland

It's still snowing. It doesn't feel like England at all. Unless you watch the news and see the "not used to snow" chaos out there: cars trapped up trees, cats in snowdrifts, houses sliding down hills.

Aieee!

It's weird to think that there is a whole generation for whom this is the first significant nationwide snow. I seem to remember loads of snowy winters when I was little. Mind you, we were in Germany for some of them.

One of the neighbours has been going up and down the road outside in his tractor with a snowplough blade on the front, which is helpful. Although, if it keeps coming down like it is at the moment it will all be under a blanket again in an hour.

We went over to the pub for dinner last night, as it was too bloody snowy to go shopping, and we have reached the "three scabby carrots, 200 poppodums and dented cans with no labels on" stage in the kitchen. The place was pretty quiet, as you'd expect, but a few more people came in as the evening went on, and we ended up having quite a convivial time.

At about nine o'clock the snow started again, huge heavy flakes that quickly settled, covering the roads. We watched it, with the bar girlies getting more and more excited, until they decided they were going to go out and make snow angels. So I went as well, to watch. I am far too old and creaky to lie in the snow.

Some of the chaps in the pub started reminiscing about Great Dares Of Our Time, triggered by the conversation about the advisibility of making a snow angel in the middle of the road.*

One of the Great Dares appealed to me - a chap had to sit (on a chair from the pub) on the white line in the middle of the road outside, drinking his pint. Apparently all the traffic just slowed down and drove round him.

Another one involved making a chap run naked down the main road to pick up a diesel glove from the garage, then run back. It took ages "because he kept stopping and hiding in the bushes". Excellent.

So. More snow due over the weekend. I just hope I can get to the office on Monday, I am starting to go a bit stir crazy now.


*We decided against it, and used the garage forecourt instead.