Hunkering down in snowy London
Posted: Monday, February 02, 2009 9:50 AM
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London, England
By Chris Hampson, NBC News Director of International News
LONDON – And now some really big breaking news from the U.K.:
It’s snowing.
Not the sort of chill-you-to-the-bones white stuff that freezes thermometers across whole swathes of the United States, where the snow comes to the eaves and you have to chisel your way out of an upstairs window.
No, this is British snow. Light fluffy cotton-wool stuff you see on pretty calendars in December.
It’s about 28 degrees Fahrenheit – just below tee-shirt weather in some parts of the world. But here it’s enough to bring much of the country and its capital to a standstill.
It’s chaos.
Airports are closed, freeways at a standstill, London’s buses aren’t running, the Tube is getting nowhere fast. Even the train companies’ websites have crashed due to the number of people trying to find out if they can get to work. They can’t.
Businesses have closed for the day. TV news reporters – with barely a fleck of white on their heads – warn us to travel only if really necessary.
Here it seems a single snowflake is enough to bring our trains slithering to a halt. Imagine what a few inches can do. (And this from the country that – during the fall – has a special slower train timetable to allow for slippery leaves on the tracks. Honest).
Nanooks of the North we are not.
The problem is we’re just not used to it and we’re certainly not prepared for it.
When I lived in New Jersey we’d tune in the radio, stoke up the fire and wait for a guy in a pickup truck to arrive to plow the driveway.
Here, you can’t even find a snow shovel. Snow chains were last seen on the Russian front during the Crimean War. Today I am more likely to see Her Majesty the Queen proceed through my village with a squadron of the Household Cavalry leading the way than I am to see a snow plow.
To be fair, this is the worst snow we’ve had for 18 years and our coldest winter for ten.
So like many thousands of Brits today I have invoked the spirit of the Blitz and am hunkered down at home. It’s the kind of weather that makes me want to wile away my time knitting a pair of fingerless gloves, put another record on the gramophone, and gaze at the postcard I see out of my window.
My garden is like a fly-through McDonalds for birds – nuthatches, robins, thrushes, blackbirds and collared doves all stocking up at the feeders.
Unlike their two-legged friends inside, they – at least – know how to get around. Even when it snows.
