The White Stuff

[sierra_le_oli]

Heaps has already been written about the snow, but as people are asking... The recent snow hasn't been too much of a bother. London, and certainly East London, is too warm to have and keep a lot of snow. There's a couple of inches on the ground from the last two days, much of which had turned into ice today. The spectacular photos in the media

Comments

[mrslant]

Sometimes, going by the reaction, you'd think it was the first time London had experienced snow

Don't get me started. Ditto summer heat, autumn leaves etc. ad nauseam.

In 1947 and 1963 it was like this for three months! I think there'd be a famine if that happened now...

[sollersuk]

I remember 1963 vividly. The snow hadn't started on Christmas Day, but it was so cold that the gas pressure went way, way down and it took nearly 6 hours for the turkey to cook. My cousins were staying with us, and my mother sent me to take them for as long a walk as possible to get us out of the way. I took them on a loop via Barnes Bridge and Hammersmith Bridge, and when they complained of the distance half way along the Barnes toepath was able to tell them that it was a slightly shorter distance home if we carried on than if we turned back. Low gas pressure and electricity disruptions meant that I was cold all the way through to Easter. We didn't starve but food got even more boring than usual - I can get very fed up with root vegetables and tinned baked beans, and my mother resurrected a lot of her rationing-era recipes that I thought (and hoped) had been left behind for good after the Coronation

[sierra_le_oli]

Wow, I had no idea about those years. I remember going to an exhibition at the Science Museum and being taken aback at how long there was rationing in the UK.

[sollersuk]

I was born after the war, but the day I got my own tea ration passed into family folklore. Up until then, I would be given some of my mother's or father's tea in a saucer, but even at that young age (3, I think, though it could be 4) I was aware of my rights and demanded my own cup of tea. I drank it, and that was it - with very rare exceptions, I haven't drunk tea since. At the age of 6, playing "shops", I took it for granted that I would need something for a ration book.

[sollersuk]

Pass on to Wingnut an experience I had between Christmas and the New Year. We went for a walk in the Malverns - only a short one of an hour or so because the paths were so treacherous. While we were struggling up the path to one of the hilltops, we stepped aside as half a dozen cyclists came cycling down. I'm still baffled as to how they got up in the first place.

[moustachios]

You can get snow tires for bikes.