Today was my first real day back from Christmas, in that I had my first lecture of the term. It was good to get out of the house. I actually arrived back in the UK on Thursday the 7th of January, the morning after one of the largest snowstorms in UK memory. So I left cold and snowy Utah for cold and snowy England. Now, I came to England under the impression that it wouldn’t snow here. I have been disappointed. Granted, snow is uncommon here, but no less undesirable in my mind. The problem is that since snow is uncommon here, no one knows how to function in it. I found out later that the airport had only recently reopened when I landed. This meant that there were thousands of people who had been stranded there the previous night who were now understandably anxious to get home. This led to some less than pleasant exchanges between the RailAir coach driver and several passengers. Suffice it to say, I finally got on the coach after waiting in the sub-zero temperatures for nearly 45 minutes.
Reading is about 40 minutes from the airport and the ride was luckily uneventful. I was a little put out that I had to come home to a snowy mess, but to be fair, it looked beautiful. However, as we made our way through the snowy countryside to Reading, I began to wonder how I was going to get from the train station to my house if the roads were impassable. I went to the bus stop and stood in line, still in sub-zero conditions, only to find out that the bus I needed wasn’t running. The only option would be a taxi, most of which were charging extra for hazardous conditions. Rude. So I got in another line to wait for one of very few taxis that were out that day. After another 20 minutes in the cold, I told the driver where I lived and he told me he would get me as close as he could. This turned out to be the end of my street, which left me to drag my suitcase through the several inches of snow covering my road. Lovely. I finally made it in to the house, which thankfully, was warm.
The next day I decided that I needed to go to the little corner grocery store since I had left very little food in my cupboards when I left. The snow hadn’t melted at all and I couldn’t face trudging through the snow on my front walk. Then I had a stroke of brilliance. I grabbed one of our cookie sheets and cleared our walk, laughing the whole time at what the neighbors must have thought. With our path clear, Kim and I journeyed to the store and bought the necessary provisions, minus milk and water, which they had sold out of. I lived the next few days on beans and toast and whatever else I could find left over in the cupboard. Luckily things have now thawed and we discovered that the big grocery stores let you order online and have groceries delivered. Brilliant.
(Also, they use bulldozers to clear snow.)
