SKYFELL

You probably noticed this already if you happen to live in these here parts, and, if you have the dubious pleasure of sharing these islands with me, you might have had a similar experience yourself, but recently we seemed to have what I can only describe as being what honestly felt like the scariest snowstorm ever…

There I was, blissfully sleeping (or as close to it as I ever get), when I was awoken quite unexpectedly by the furious drumming of ice lashing against the window and a time of night when you might have hoped that all the demons in hell were otherwise employed and wondering quite where they might go to actually find some ice in such a warm place as where they usually resided.

Almost immediately, as my brain struggled to come to terms with this sudden gatecrashing of reality into my blissful slumberings, through the curtains I saw a bright flash and, as sure as science is science, three or four seconds later such a crash of thunder that the entire house rattled…

Had there perhaps been an explosion nearby…?

(This, you may be surprised to hear, is not unheard of around this particular district….)

I staggered across to the window and peeked between those aforementioned curtains to witness, through the droplets of water that clung to the glass like limpets, that a sea of white had suddenly and unexpectedly reappeared after having been shooed away like an over-eager guest once the party’s well and truly over, not more than a week earlier…

Thunderstorms and snowfall…?

It was quite obviously the end of the world, and, whilst I didn’t exactly run about the place pulling out tufts of my hair and yelling “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” the weather did, nevertheless, seem rather unusual and more than a trifle inclement than might have been otherwise expected.

Another mighty flash and crash duet followed shortly thereafter, and then another, but the proximity was receding and I returned warily to my slumbers in the surefire knowledge that another grim morning was almost certain to greet me when and if I awoke the next day.

And so it came to pass that I did indeed survive the night, and opened up those very same curtains to be greeted once more by… clear roads and a minimal amount of precipitation, and I returned to my nocturnal scribblings reassured that the day might not yet turn out to be quite so grim.

An hour later, when I once more looked out of the window, it was to see a world of whiteness being added to by a formidable blizzard, which only goes to prove something or other, I suppose, and I grumpily set about facing my day.

Because, as well as all the adding of grippers to my heavy boots, and retrieving the all-weather clothing from where it is usually stashed, once you’ve dug the car out of the snow and frozen ice, then there’s the tricky problem of getting around once the white stuff has planted itself not so firmly upon the ground…

And, so, as sure as eggs is eggs, once again the unfortunate commuter has to endure a journey which is more than twice as long and not even approaching half as much “fun” as it might usually be, and along with it comes a certain amount of pitfalls to trap the unwary traveller…

Like the fact that it’s really no earthly use having four-wheel drive if everyone else in front of you doesn’t, and moves so very slowly and carefully that your own ability to get yourself anywhere becomes increasingly hampered by the fact that they are in front of you.

Still, I suppose that this situation is far preferable to finding some incautious idiot driving around like it’s a summer’s day and at speeds that would be considered a tad unreasonable even if it were.

Later on, as the general laws of traffic motion meant that my own progress slowed and slowed because of the knock-on effect as each of the vehicles in front of me moved ever-so-slightly more slowly than the one in front of it.

Naturally, the increasing lateness of the time meant that more and more of us were joining this merry dance, as we were all now fully inside the ironically mis-named “rush hour”, and serious actual “knock-on” effects were becoming more and more likely as the lack of general vehicular motion over it found the road surface – much neglected by a local council who had obviously never heard of the concept of “gritting” - becoming increasingly covered in ice so that braking at the slowest speeds could find you slip-sliding towards the white van in front of you and only stopping due to the grace of the laws of momentum being battled by whatever friction there was.

Phew! Lucky escape there!

Still, eventually I made it, which is more than some managed, and, a few hours later, I made the return trip in slightly less alarming circumstances, and by the next morning, the rains had come and washed it all away, leaving a less than fond memory and a severe reminder that winter is still hanging around like a persistent visitor who just won’t damn well leave…