Jan
10
Snow, snow, everywhere! There is no place on this island that is the United Kingdom, where you can hide away from the snow at the moment. Either you embrace it and love it and make the most of it or you have to go and hide inside, sit tight and wait for the big thaw to begin. 
A NASA satellite image of the United Kingdom this week showed the entire island from the northern tip of Scotland to the southern tip England is just white. When we came over here 6 months ago we hoped we would wake to at least a few mornings of snow in the garden in the winter months. Many people had told us that in Tonbridge they usually see about 3 or 4 days of light snow in a year and then it usually melts away by the next morning, but sometimes you have to “be careful what you wish for, ‘cos you just might get it all”. Well, we wished for snow and it came in the form of the harshest winter the UK has seen in 30 years. The snow just fell and fell endlessly. 
It packed deeper and deeper on the curbs and in the gardens. Eventually you lose sight of your flower-pots and then taller structures like your car disappear too. Not removed by thieves though, just buried under a blanket of white. One of the things that have struck me the most this week has been the lack of colour. The world to us at the moment looks as if it has been captured on a black and white image. If you take photos they just appear as if they are black and white. It is the most strikingly beautiful background and just another breathtaking contrast to the colour-palette that was autumn.
Mitchell and Jenna love the snow. They go sledding whenever they can. There are some lovely steep hills around here where children from all the houses come out and join in. Some children bring plastic sheets, others arrive with plastic washing buckets and one little girl just had a plastic packet. If you can sit on it and it can slide down a hill, it’s in!
On Monday morning Jon and I took a walk around part of Bewl Water, a beautiful reservoir which is now the largest inland body of water in south east England. To walk around the perimeter of the lake is about 12.7miles. It was a cold, frosty morning and the fallen brown leaves crunched under our boots, but the sky was perfectly clear and the warm filtered, winter sun was just enough to make it a most picturesque walk. The beauty of Bewl Water in the winter is that the trees have thinned out by losing all their leaves, so you can access the water’s edge from many more spots, that you tend to walk past in the summer months because you cannot see through the thick leaves of the forest. 
Ducks and geese were all over and it was amazing to watch them carrying on with life as if nothing had changed, on the frozen lake-side shores. There was a moment when a line of ducks swam out from the reeds and behind the group swam one single white swan. I laughed and commented to Jon that it reminded me of the story of the Ugly Duckling. You can walk for miles around Bewl Water in the most beautiful forests, past farmlands and over little wooden bridges without seeing another person for ages, but you never ever feel unsafe. A few people might pass you on mountain bikes and a few other walkers will wave and pass by, but you can walk and take in the beauty and breathe in the fresh crisp air and know that you are most likely to be perfectly safe.
On Tuesday Jon and I took a trip into London. It was a week of playing “watch the weather forecast” and when we had moments of snow-free time we made the most of it. Jon had not really done the touristy things in London so we planned our day and had a whistle-stop tour of the London eye, Parliament buildings, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Green Park, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, the frozen serpentine lake, the Albert Memorial and the Science Museum. It was the perfect day to do the London eye. It was a clear bright, sunny morning, in which we could see “until forever” , even the arch of Wembley stadium was visible in the distance.
By Tuesday night the snow had returned in force. We woke to a thick blanket of snow and news that some of the schools had closed. Mitchell had the rest of the week off, but Jenna’s school was open. The schools here are well prepared for the snow days and Mitchell’s school has a login area on the internet for the children where they can access assignments for all their subjects. 
I have already looked on the schools website for information about school-closures tomorrow and the school is closed again. I haven’t told Mitchell yet, so he is still getting an early-to-bed school nights sleep. The snow gave us the perfect playground on Wednesday. We took a baseball bat and a football out into the field across the road from our house and what fun it was. Smacking a snowball with a baseball bat mostly just leaves you with a mouthful of snow, and kicking a football is great because it doesn’t go too far so you don’t have to run as much. J
Today we went to lunch at one of our favourite pubs in Tunbridge Wells. It is called “The Robin Hood” and then headed off for another round of ten-pen bowling. I retain the family bowling title (and my crown), despite Mikes best efforts in those last few frames.
Jon leaves tomorrow to head back to SA. We can remember counting the days down until he got here and now the time is already over and he is preparing to head home. He certainly saw “the worst” (or what I think is “the best”) of Britain with all the snow and winter weather.
Some strange things came out of the news this week. Stories of people who walk right past warning signs, over frozen lakes and fall in to their deaths, how you cannot clear the ice from the pavement in front of your house and grit it as this might cause someone to fall and they can sue you, and how panic-buying saw the shops stripped of goods, but it also highlighted the community spirit that people have, to help one another. Young people clear the driveways of elderly neighbours; people offer to go shopping for those who cannot get around in the adverse weather conditions. We have seen people pushing cars for strangers who became stuck in the snow and it’s all done in good spirit. I spun our car twice in one journey when I went to fetch Mike from the station this week, but at the end of the day it’s all about learning new things.
This weather makes you think about the world, about human beings and how we cope in strange situations, it makes you think about our planet and just how much we are not really in control of the forces of nature. It makes you realise just how small we really are in the greater scheme of things.
The evenings grow noticeably longer now. You can take note of how dark it is at a given time of day, perhaps when you leave the office, or the time when your train leaves the station, then do it again a week later and notice the difference.
