Snow

Well, I really can't avoid talking about it any longer, can I? It's snowed. No really, proper snow. Apparently the worst since 1991 which is, come to think of it, the last time I went sledging. The children only made it to school on Wedsnesday and Thursday this week, and on Thursday we went by sledge. The snow is still falling now - about three inches settled, on top of yesterday's frozen slush - and predicted to fall for the rest of the day.
It's interesting that the country is getting so het up about this snow and the 'lack of a precise forecast'. Since when has telling the future been a precise art? We were much happier, I'm sure, when people just sucked their teeth and stared at the sky and waited to see what the weather would do. If this week has proved anything, it's surely that our obsession with controlling all the variables in our environment is pointless. The weather is. Live with it.
I think it also helps to take the long view. In the last century or so, we've had a really hefty winter every 20-25 years or so - 1947, 1963, 1991 and 2008/9. Why is this year a surprise? Anyone with their eye on the calendar properly should have had an inkling this was coming.

It's also raised some interesting points regarding how we live and work. As a family, we are are very lucky - we both work from home and live a mile or less from the children's schools. We can get to school and to the shops, whatever happens, although this working week has been wiped out for me by the schools closing. The schools have been closing 'because the roads are too dangerous to ask teachers (and pupils) to travel'. When I was a child and we had six inches of snow, the only person who couldn't get to school was the headmaster - because he lived in Harrow, not within the village. All the teachers made it even though the school was down one Chiltern hill and up another one for some of them, because they came on foot. I never missed a school day through snow, although I do recall one cancelled birthday party because two friends in rural Hampshire couldn't get off their farms.

But enough of this. I'm off to shovel children into waterproof trousers and play snowballs.