By Larissa Clare
Forget the state of the European Union. Don’t even bother about last weekend’s football scores. Disregard Bieber. Fashion Week. TfL… Well, maybe not TfL.
Because if there’s one thing you’re guaranteed to get a response to, it’s the statement that ‘apparently it’s meant to snow today’.
If, like me, you hate the cold and think that snow just offers unparalleled chances to fall over more often and have it hurt more than usual, you groan.
“Really?” you say, anxiously trying to peer at the sky. “Are you sure? I mean, it’s cold enough, but…”
You’re later found in the kitchen mauling the underside of your shoes with a fork in an attempt to give them some traction.
To other, more recent Antipodean arrivals, impending snow means it’s time to cue the excited happy dance.
“Yes!” they exclaim in unison. “I haven’t seen ‘snow’ since my family tried to go skiing at Thredbo in 2007 and we kept getting stuck on woodchips! I’m going to make snowmen and go tobogganing on the Heath and find Santa Clause!”
This batch can be found kicking snow around delightedly until they realise that snow is not only cold, but wet, and they then spend the rest of their wintery wonderland uploading pictures of their snowmen onto Facebook, waiting for all their friends (sporting tans from Laneway festival) to comment on them and be totes jealous.
Rich Londoners usually just roll their eyes.
“Great, just great. How am I meant to drive to Brussels/the Cotswolds/my cottage in the Swiss Alps now?”
Expect to spend Monday morning hearing all about how positively hair-raising the drive back was, darling. And really, mummy and daddy should get the council to look into the state of the roads. Indeed!
Then there’s every other Londoner. And their reaction depends completely and utterly on how close the approaching snow is to the weekend. If it is due to snow over the weekend, TfL comes in for a blistering tongue lashing due to its inability to cope with a dusting of flakes on the rails. If it’s Sunday evening, they promptly drop to their knees and pray it will be thick enough to be ‘snowed in’, even if they are on the Victoria Line (the only tube line to be completely underground, fact, and thus technically impervious to being snowed in).
So while London has had one dusting of powder, there is apparently more in the works. But whichever bracket you think you fall into, prepare to be surprised. The thing about snow is that no matter how much you talk about it and bemoan the inconvenience it causes, there is something magical about the settling of the world into its white blanket. There is a new hush, a quiet stillness, an exciting crispness to the air. There is nothing quite like making virgin footprints in the snow. I even discovered that I’m not averse to taking off my well-tractioned shoes and doing a bit of a barefoot snow dance in the back courtyard at three in the morning. It was magical. And so must have been all the vodka I’d consumed.
Read our other London snow encounters:
– Snowflakes are falling on my head
– An Aussie in the snow
– Let it snow
Have you got a London snow tale? Tell us below: