‘Snow’ way out!

The joys of a snow day

Apocalypse! Or winter, as other countries call it

So. On Sunday night, as everyone knows, it snowed. And it snowed quite a lot in some places. Some said that it was the worst snow in this country for 6 years, others said it was the worst for 18 years. All I know is that it was the most snow that I had ever seen.

But the snow ground the country to a halt – London buses were cancelled, driving became difficult and dangerous and trains were cancelled left, right and centre – trust me, I was trying to get back to uni, but the trains were either delayed massively or cancelled regularly, so I emailed my tutor and told her I was taking a snow day.

These snowdays puzzle me somewhat. Yes. It was fantastic fun, and yes I enjoyed spending the day with my mum, rather than on a three hour train journey but how is it that in the rest of the world snow doesn’t cause society to fall to pieces?

It seems to me that the answer to this puzzle is preparation. Norway is prepared for snowfall. Germany is used to snowfall – the UK clearly is not. I wonder how often schools are closed in snowy climbs, and I wonder if what they call ‘severe weather’ is the same as what we were calling ‘severe weather’ over the past few days.

That said, I know that my mum and I both enjoyed our snow day and I’m fairly confident we weren’t alone. I’m betting the thousands of people and children who couldn’t make it into school or work loved frolicking in the snow too.

I don’t think I ever had a snow day when I was at school. I know how old that makes me sound, and you’re expecting me to say “the youth of today, they’re so lucky!” or something similar, but I genuinely can’t think of a time when school was affected by the weather. Even the day of the floods I went to school. I tried to turn around and go home but my friends Dad took us back to school in his window cleaning van. Other than the bomb scare at my secondary school, I can’t ever remember a time when lessons were cancelled and school shut down for the day.

This is the second time in the UK has been hit by ‘severe weather’ this winter. Does this mean that our country will listen to the boy scouts and ‘be prepared,’ or will we adopt BBC Radio One’s Willosophy ‘Be ready, then you’ll never have to get ready’. Or will the country come to a standstill every time we encounter a bit of snow?

Incidentally, I’m not comparing myself to the entirety of the UK but I call myself a journalism student and the only pen I had in my bag to write this with was a poxy little freebie from the bookies. If everyone else in the country is as ill prepared as I am, we’re categorically screwed.

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Tags: Alice-May Purkiss, Britain, Snow