Two weeks on, and it still feels like the arctic!

I have to say that I am now well and truly sick of being cold and more often than not, also wet.

Living in one of the highest and one of the few steep, north facing parts of Surrey, the ice and snow hang around here longer than anywhere else and when they fall, do so with a vengeance and we get far more than anyone else locally. I have resorted to taking photos of the garden marked with the date and time and sending them in to work when I can’t get out of the road with the car, as they don’t believe me. For instance as of now, everywhere else the white stuff has disappeared, but not here! Oh no, it is lurking in corners and on the flower beds looking like it will be there until July. There remains a reasonable sized bank of it nestled up against the side of the greenhouse which is frozen solid.

The forecast for the Easter weekend, which being at the beginning of April we might have had not unreasonable hopes of being spring like and warmish, looks dire. Top temperatures of four degrees all weekend, significantly lower than average, with drifting fronts of rain and sleet criss-crossing the country. We might avoid those in the south east, but with what can only be described as a needling, bitter wind still in evidence it still looks as though we have become a far flung outpost of the arctic.

“Don’t be such a wimp” I hear some of you cry! “You can dress for the cold and when you get out and do a bit of exercise you get so warm!” Maybe, and if that’s what you want to do then bully for you, but personally I can do without weather which means it takes about ten minutes to get ready to go out of the front door due to the amount of clothing and thermal protection you have to put on. To walk the dog, I am wearing leggings with jeans over the top, a T-shirt, then a long sleeved shirt, then a thick jumper, then a Barbour. I have a thick scarf which is wrapped round my neck about three times, a woolly hat which makes me look as though I am going to a fancy dress party as an elf, two pairs of sock, wellies and leather gloves. Quite frankly, I look ludicrous and am a fair impersonation of the Michelin Man, being practically circular once everything is on.

There would appear to be no let up in this abysmal weather for the foreseeable future, quite possibly through to the middle of April. It will really piss me off if the moment I go away for my holidays in the second week of April the weather breaks and the UK gets sunshine and mid teens temperatures. I remember two years ago going to Greece with two friends mid April when the weather here had been awful and saying “It’s lovely in Crete in April, temperatures mid twenties and we’ll be on the beach”. The minute we left, temperatures in the UK became tropical and the whole week that we were away, it was 27 degrees here but tipped it down in Greece and was cold. It didn’t ruin the holiday, but it didn’t help after I’d bigged it up so much.

I dread to think how much money we will owe the gas board by the time (if ever) we get to switch the heating off. Four days a week (the weekend and the two days I work at home) the boiler is going for about 16 hours, virtually all day. This is a naturally cold house due to the two open chimneys, an unheated kitchen (the radiator is behind an extra cupboard we installed as I have so many pots and pans, and so we switched it off) and the fact that the French windows don’t shut properly with a gap at the top you can see daylight through. I keep meaning to get them fixed, but they’re not a security risk as the locking mechanism still works and have simply dropped slightly in the centre away from the frame, so it isn’t really a priority. I’m not even sure if you can get things like that fixed, or if they have to be replaced. That definitely isn’t affordable, although if I offset the gas bills I might manage it.

The best investment I have made in recent weeks was an electric blanket, which I bought through an ebay ‘Deal of the Day’ for about a quarter of its usual price. About an hour before we go to bed one of us goes and switches it on and it’s toastie in the extreme when we eventually slip under the duvet. Lovely, and no need for bedsocks.

Now there’s an image to leave you with!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow (again!)

So after having been lulled into a false sense of security, we have again been deluged with snow in the south eastern corner of the UK.

Highly localised, the late evening and overnight snowstorms have caused havoc, with motorists stranded for 10 hours and more on the A23 towards Gatwick and Crawley. This morning we have about 5” of snow in the garden and on the way to the station (where unfortunately the trains were running into Victoria and so I had to go to work) there were drifts at the side of the road at least two feet deep.

We seem to have been well prepared for the snow a few weeks ago, but this lot really caught us out. Right up until the last minute, the forecast was for ‘a few flakes’ but what we actually got was a total blanket. At 6pm yesterday the roads had not been gritted and the traffic crawled along in both directions on a white ribbon with two crooked tyre tracks in the middle. Morrison’s car park, where I leave my precious soft top during the day, was pristine white and the slope leading to it particularly hazardous. It took me 30 minutes to do a 10 minute journey, but that was nothing compared to someone I know who took seven hours to get from Guildford to Sevenoaks.

Central London, of course, is totally snow free. It’s as though there is under street heating for all the toffs in town whilst the poor peasants in the countryside wade through drifts and fall into ditches. My work colleagues don’t understand why I turn up in about three jumpers, snow boots, a rather fetching bobble hat and thick coat when the streets are clear of ice and the sun is shining. I have resorted to taking photos of my garden and gate with its icy hat on to convince them that it really is a totally different world just 20 miles as the crow flies south of the big smoke.

You all know, if you read this blog regularly, how much I hate the weather in England. My sinuses block up, I am prone to chest infections and viruses (have been ever since I was a kid) , I am afraid of falling on ice due to a dodgy back and knees and fundamentally, I just hate being cold and hate being wet. It seems like it has been cold and wet since late October, and I don’t think we have seen any sustained period of sunshine all winter. I feel so much better in the summer when the sun shines, and even better in a drier climate.

I read my horoscope the other day and it said that a fundamental change would happen soon in my life which would make me completely rethink my future direction, including my work and well being. Clearly, that means I am about to win a large sum of money which will enable me to stick two fingers up at my employer, retire early and go an live in Crete, occasionally popping back to visit The Hubby, Daughters One and Two, The Dog and The Cats. In fact I will probably take The Dog and The Cats with me. It is highly likely in that scenario that I may not return to the UK from my April holiday and will simply stay there planning our retirement mansion in the sun, getting all the pets shipped out to me.

Of course, we all know that horoscopes are complete bunkum, but it’s nice to dream isn’t it? And the weather has been c**p, so why not?

Panic, panic!!

My daughter, who works in Morrisons, tells me that when she got into work today at 9.30am there were queues all the way down the aisles and the store was as busy as just before Christmas.

Now why would that be, I wonder? Oh yes, there are a few flakes of snow coming down so regardless of the fact that we all have freezers choc full of food (and probably at this time of year full with Christmas left-overs) and amply full cupboards, the UK populace thinks there is a strong possibility it may starve over the weekend, so is stocking up.

I never understand this seige mentality. For goodness sake they can't all have bottle feeding babies who can't have anything but milk, and so be needing to top up on formula and nappies! Most of them are bog standard normal families.

If I really put my mind to it here, we could live for a fortnight or more without having to go shopping for anything at all. Yes we might have to drink black tea if we run out of milk, toast may be in short supply and meals might have a few unusual combinations of ingredients, but by and large we'd get a balance of carbs, protein and the full balance of nutrition we need. Most of us in the Western world, despite our varying incomes, are pretty well nourished and could survive for quite a while on less food without any major detrimental effect upon our health. And we all eat too much most of the time, anyway. It would do us good to have a few days off the snacks and junk food.

And anyway, although supplies might be disrupted for a day or so if the snow really comes down and the main arterial routes become difficult, by Monday they'll be back to normal. There is too much profit involved for suppliers, distributers and retailers for them to allow anything else to happen.

These panic buying people need a dose of common sense, ideally administered anally! In their greed they are buying up supplies of basic food like bread, potatoes and milk thereby denying others their fair share which under normal circumstances they would get, because there's enough for everyone if we all just buy what we need. And I bet loads of it is wasted.

Personally, I have just taken delivery of my normal Tesco order, which was made at the beginning of the week before the snow forecast. It contains the normal amount of food we would need for dinner in the evening, packed lunches and breakfast whenever we are at home. I haven't supplemented it with an extra few pints of milk 'just in case' nor have I ordered extra of anything, because I know in my freezer I have joints of beef, fish, ready meals and frozen veg as well as rolls and crumpets (looking forward to toasting them in front of a log fire!). We'll be fine, in fact more than fine.

Perhaps I should add a law outlawing panic buying to my 'things I would do in 2013 if I were in charge' list. Trouble is, it's getting rather long!

Snow! Whoopee !!!

Yet again, my favourite thing has happened. Yes, it snowed.

Fortunately, it wasn’t much and didn’t settle, at least not on the roads, and disappeared as quickly as it came. It had been expected and local authorities and transport companies were prepared. But more is promised.

It never ceases to amaze me how much I stress about snow. It is the only form of weather that really upsets me, for two reasons:-

1.    It disrupts my life so much

2.    I am scared of falling with my dodgy knees and bad back

I dislike being cold and I hate being wet, but I can live with both because they don’t really interfere with how I live my life and I’m not scared of them. But snow gets me every time.

I never liked it even when I was a kid. My friends would go out into the snow with gay abandon (that’s before the word ‘gay’ became distorted in its meaning and was a trigger for sniggering) chucking snowballs about, making snow angels by lying flat on their backs in the stuff and making hazardous slides on the pavement so they could slither along the street then fall flat on their arses (and so, by the way, could most of the old ladies who lived there too, although for them not intentionally). They did all this and laughed all the way to their hot chocolate at the end of it.

I never joined in. If at all possible I’d stay inside, cocooned in my warm lounge, watching out of the window. If absolutely forced to go outside in the cold, I’d sit miserably  on a bench occasionally getting pelted with snowballs and being called a sissy.

But it wasn’t lack of adventurousness which put me off; I’m not a wimp, although now I am older and wiser I won’t put myself in a potentially hazardous situation if I don’t have to. I used to ride my bike (which didn’t have any brakes) down Chalkpit Lane in the early 1970s racing several others. We fortunately never met a car coming the other way, and we had some spectacular crashes at the bottom, but I was never scared doing it although it was, arguably, much more dangerous. I just don’t like snow – simple as that.

I am, as those of you who know me well understand, much happier in a warm climate. Being able to spend your life outdoors for most months of the year, not being cold or worrying about whether it will chill later so should you take a cardie is the way I want to live. Being able to walk around and drive without worrying about black ice, poor visibility because of snow, or having to make sure I have a shovel, blanket or bar of chocolate in the car for emergencies is my ideal situation.

My oldest daughter has taken my granddaughter skiing this week, and little Ruby will be going into the nursery class with all those four year old French children who are practically born wearing skis. My daughter enjoys skiing too, although why you would go to all that effort to get up a mountain, just to slide down it on pieces of Perspex is beyond me. But each to his own, and its just as well we don’t all like the same thing.

If we did, there’d never be room on my favourite beach!

Too busy too blog!

I haven’t blogged for a while now, because life has been somewhat busy.

Principally, my time and mind has been occupied with a very unwell little puppy. Coco is a typical Labrador – always grubbing in the hedgerows and digging stuff up, then eating what she finds. Most often it is something totally unsuitable such as cat poo or her particular favourite, horse poo. But she’s not overly fussy and by and large will pick up and eat anything.

This time she clearly ingested something which disagreed in the most violent fashion with her insides. Normally a ravenous eater, she wouldn’t touch food nor, more worryingly, water, for two whole days. We came down one morning to find the carpet covered in vomit and bloody faeces, and throughout the day she was listless and sick even when she sipped water or had a few grains of rice. Desperately worried, we took her to the vet, who didn’t seem worried at all (presumably sees it all the time) and gave us some anti biotics and sent us on our way.

Things didn’t improve and the next day we took her back to the vets where she was kept in and put onto a drip, by this time fairly severely dehydrated. The nasty specimens we had scraped up from the rug have been sent off for analysis, and we don’t yet know what she ate although I’m sure we will soon. It could be anything, on walks we are always taking things out of her mouth that shouldn’t be in there and goodness knows what she digs up when she’s mooching round the garden. And there are definitely toadstools out there somewhere – no matter how many times you try to get rid of them they spring back up.

The vet, an infinitely patient man, checked her over for anything and everything including various canine ailments I rang up to suggest having looked them up on Google (which must be the bane of his life) and after 24 hours when she had stopped emitting foul fluids and seemed more herself and we had had enough time to steam clean the carpets, she came home. Apart from a raspy sore throat caused we think by the pipe put down her throat while she was sedated, she seems absolutely fine. It is an incredible relief, and I don’t think I have been so worried even when my children were ill.

The cost of all this of course, has been astronomic. X-rays, drugs, diagnostics and veterinary time are ridiculously expensive. Thank goodness we took out pet insurance, for which we pay a measly £12 a month and which we are just about to claim against for almost £600. It has made us think that perhaps we better investigate taking out insurance for the moggies, who fortunately have never been really ill or cost me much beyond their annual jabs.

On top of everything else it snowed the other day, and you will know if you read this blog last winter how much I hate the snow, hate being cold and hate being wet. It actually made people on the train speak to one another, mostly in horror, at whether they were going to get home and asking “this wasn’t forecast was it?” looking out of the window with worried eyes.

I’m supposed to be avoiding stress to bring the old blood pressure down. Recent events can’t have done it any good, and it had gone up to treatable levels when I last saw the doc before all this happened so I am now taking tablets every day (someone asked me what drug it was and not remembering exactly, I said "Ritalin" which made them snort with laughter. It isn't, of course). I have had to resort to buying one of those old people’s pill boxes with the days of the week on it so I remember whether I’ve taken them or not – of everything that is going on, that is the one thing which has made me feel oldest!

To finish it all off nicely, my own work has gone crazily busy and The Hubby has been job hunting like mad. On that front at least we have some good news in that he has some temporary work for a few months, which will keep the wolf (or at any rate the debt collectors) away for a little longer.

It seems like it was time someone gave us a break, it’s been a pretty tough year whichever way you look at it.

Isn't it mild at the moment? Is the climate changing?

What unseasonably mild weather we are having. Perhaps there is something in this climate change malarkey, but I’m not really convinced despite the fact that David Attenborough (who is God in human form) says there is.

The weather all over the place seems to be peculiar. Only a couple of weeks ago, the alpine countries were complaining of a lack of snow. Now, some parts of Austria have had five metres of snow in one week, more than they would normally expect in a whole season. Villages are cut off and there is a real danger of avalanche. Loads of foreign skiers are marooned and can’t get home (shame, poor rich bastards).

Meanwhile, some parts of Europe are really warm for January and all the spring plants have started to blossom already. One cold snap now and the blossom will die, along with it all next season’s fruit as nothing will have matured enough.

Personally, I’d quite like to live in 30 degrees of sunshine all the time. I love wandering around in swimsuit and sarong (quite a sight, I can tell you) and being able to go out until one or two in the morning in short sleeved tops and not be cold, or have to worry about whether it is going to rain tonight. But I do understand that not everyone is like that, and we do need the full range of climates to feed the planet and preserve some of the animals and beautiful places on it.

Yes, I’m sure that all the pollution we chuck out into the atmosphere doesn’t do it any good. All the cars, factories and so on must have an impact and change the gaseous mix up we all breathe. But I do get irritated when people lecture me for using my patio heater for one hour on perhaps two evenings a year (the rest of the time in this damp country it’s too cold to sit outside even with the heater on) or on burning my garden waste (if I take it to the tip, I’m using petrol, so which is worse?) or the various other things that the climate change lobby gets excited about.

The trouble with our approach to this is the same as with our approach to health and safety which I blogged about yesterday. We take it too far and get anal about it. Yes, we can all make a small difference but the main difference can be made by tackling the big polluters – industry being the main one. It’s the old 80/20 rule – tackle the 20% of contributors that make 80% of the impact first and leave the little man alone until later.

Instead, here in good old Blighty, we get lectured in the press and by the government about what we are doing wrong instead of, for instance, tackling the supermarkets about the amount of packaging they manufacture and use. The other day I unwrapped my supermarket shop to put it all away and was left with two carrier bags full of packaging – ludicrous.

So maybe I am contributing to our planet warming up and leaving a legacy of poor air and dry parched earth for my children’s generation to deal with, but I doubt that I’m the deciding factor in the future of mankind.

Now I must go and wrap things up in plastic, bump up the heating and light a bonfire because its going to be cold tonight and we can’t have that now, can we?

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Oh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And if you've no place to go
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

And that's exactly what it's doing at the moment. Just a bit. Fat little flakes which are now starting to settle on the grass and pavements but (not yet) on the road. Nasty, wet, slushy muck which would be laughed at by tough alpine dwellers or those in countries where they get tons of the stuff every winter. Yes, its pretty when it's all white and sparkly, but what's the betting it causes chaos, even after the lessons of the last two winters when for a few days the country ground to a halt.

I hate the snow. I'm a Mediterranean beach person, most comfortable at about 90 degrees fahrenheit. I hate getting wet, I hate being cold, I hate not being able to get anywhere and I HATE not being able to go out in my trendy little soft top car safely. And when it snows here the road becomes impassable (it's steep, faces North and never gets gritted) so we have to leave the cars at the bottom and walk the last 500 yards. And this is suburbia, for Christ's sake, not some remote part of Northumbria.

I hate shivering on station platforms only to get into a train that is so overheated I have to strip off several layers of clothing and still feel like I'm in a sauna. I spend most of the winter looking like a sort of bag lady version of the Michelin Man.

Because I have a bad back and dodgy knees, I am terrified of falling on ice or snow, so spend most of my time shufflling around like some old biddy of 95. In fact I'm thinking of getting some prosthetic old lady features from the stage makeup shop and wearing them all winter so that people help me across the road and get up from their seats for me on the train (although that's a rare event these days!) and I can park in the disabled spaces at the supermarket (of which there are far too many).

I hope it stops soon. I have to go out tonight and if it's icy I don't like driving (I'm a bit conscious I'm sounding like a right wimp here, but just in case you haven't quite got the message yet, I DON'T LIKE SNOW) (or ice!). I was definitely born in the wrong country, wasn't I?

Roll on retirement. I'm going to sell up and move out to my house in Crete permanently. It snows there about once every ten years and even then it only lasts for about 24 hours then the sun comes out and its 20 degrees again. I'll clearly be much happier. But I expect I'd only find something else to moan about.