I’m going to talk about the weather. Because I’m British. Its what we do. But normally its about the likelihood of rain, the possibility of sunshine, the incoming winds from Siberia. I want to talk about proper ‘weather’. Weather with a !!!! Like yesterday weather.

Because snow does fall in northern Europe. And here’s the rule for Britain: its falls in Kent, it falls in Scotland, it falls up north. In London we don’t get much. Mainly because God knows that cities are really the worst places for such precipitation. Where it looks gorgeous for 10 minutes and then screws everything up for 10 weeks after. We don’t like the snow, we can’t handle the snow, WE FUCKING HATE IT because we’ve got lots of busy things to do with our busy little lives. Like playing tennis. Can’t do that on snow. I’ve tried (obvs.) and failed. And the other thing we like to do on weekends is drive places.

And there’s the problem. We had to go to Kingston-upon-Thames for dinner. 15 miles away. We were under 3 inches of fresh, slushy, wet snow (there’s lots of different types, this was the worst) and yet a mere 15 miles away there was, according to the mates there, nuffink. Little snow overnight, now all gone. Whereas in the rarified atmosphere of norf-west London, it was coming down think’n’fast still with no sign of slowing. Should we go? Shouldn’t we go? Should we go? Shouldn’t…

Of course we went. The car went into 2 slides on our road, I turned left, the car didn’t. Then I braked at the end of the road, but the car didn’t and we slid out onto the (fortunately empty) next road. Both of these events occurring at speeds not in excess of 4mph. After those first 100 yards everything was fine and clear. And indeed Kingston was devoid of snowy deposits. Weird. And as Barnet council can only afford a couple of 2lb bags of grit each year, they obviously use it on the bigger roads and not little ones like mine. So all was fine coming home too, in fact the roads were delightfully quiet, no idea why, until we came back to the skating rink where we live.

I missed most of the football. Except the bit when Jose Morinho said Manchester City were ‘lucky’ to win against his Manchester United. Lucky. Funny how generally a team who enjoy about 70% of possession will tend to be ‘luckier’ than those who park buses. Bad day at the office for Jose? Or the start of the inevitable slide from delusion to completely losing touch with reality and then total meltdown? Even though they’re second in the league.

Happy slushy Monday

A xxxx