17 January 2010

The last of the snow?


I hope so. I hate to sound like the grown-ups in my childhood, but it was an absolute nuisance in the end. Too much ice and not enough snow, for a start. “I ’ave ad eeenough” as one of my V&A colleagues used to declare. Snow in London always gets dirty and slushy very quickly, anyway, even if when it first falls it can look quite picturesque - as here on the palms in Bethnal Green Gardens last Tuesday morning, with the red brick of the Museum in the background for contrast. It did one very useful thing, too, which was to light up the park after sunset – normally the centre is ‘orribly dark then, but people were walking across quite happily. You still run the risk of being shut in for the night, so I wouldn’t, but at least you’d probably be visible to the parks staff who lock up.

Snow out in the ‘West London Alps’ is a bit different – plodding up and down the side road where we live was really quite tiring all week, even when suitably shod, and there were odd patches lingering in the shade until yesterday.

2 comments:

Jilly said...

Nothing like palm trees in the snow! I alywas wonder whether they adapt to colder climates over time but then it can get pretty cold in the desert I think.

NAM said...

Cold, yes, but not wet - so I'm always surprised that they do as well in these islands as they do. This snow was the powdery kind, so perhaps OK-er for them?

It sounds as if the further snow which the Met Office were so gleefully predicting may turn out to be rainier than originally thought - gallons of swooshings of rain, in fact, so we can get fed up with the wet weather again!