AN OCCASIONAL DIARY

by Liz Morgan

At the beginning of December last year I packed my bags, left Nice Airport in 14ºC, and returned to the UK, a pleasant 12ºC, for the Festive Season.

Yes, I know you had snow in France and the rest of Europe, but we were told ours was worse, obviously a political porky, which paradoxically made us feel better when all services collapsed one by one like Alice’s cards.

It started about two weeks before the big day, a heavy snowfall that looked pretty and transformed dingy garden sheds into alpine chalets. The trouble was, it went on.

A short trip to any supermarket was out of the question. Local shops if you were lucky enough to have one nearby, began running out of bread milk and newspapers. There were no trains, because the electric middle rail had frozen up and no one seemed to know quite what to do, not even the high intellects of engineering, who frowned through television interviews. Short of a nationwide collection of hot water bottles, or better, members of Parliament laid head to toe to warm the frozen bit, the poor middle rail had to remain thus.

The motorways were largely impassable because there weren’t enough snow ploughs to cope. The nation’s store of salt was, despite bragging assurances, lamentably low and local authorities made it their policy to go so easy on it, you’d have got more salt out of a packet of fish and chips. This resulted in A and E departments unable to cope with the welter of broken limbs. In fact the only things meaningfully gritted were teeth when taking to the pavements or highways. Driving in towns was reduced to a very careful maximum of 20mph. It was like the first days of the motorcar. As my old Mum would have said we are always better when the Dunkirk spirit is alive and well.

But there were carol singers, or rather individual lads with foghorn voices out for a quick pound, who knew few traditional carols. PC prohibits teaching carols in most state schools. Life here has certainly changed.

As soon as suburban side streets were flattened, though still white, and it was possible to langlauf the distance from front door to car, with only six days to go before the grande bouffe, I went to Sainsbury’s.

They had actually run out of sprouts white cabbage and bread! It was so monstrously un- British, and there were mutinous mutterings around the sprout shelf.

‘Always the same, never prepared’. ‘They don’t starve in Switzerland’ ‘And what about Scandinavia?’ ‘Blasted third world, that’s what we are’. They were not wrong.

The temporary thaw came just in time for the last minute xmas spend out. In a period of high unemployment, and severe cuts in the social purse, it was mind boggling to see the piled trolleys of expensive techno gifts for children who will want bigger and better war games next year. Bring back the old fashioned spinning top and whip, but soft, it may not pass the UK’s ‘Elf and Safety’ regulations.

The thaw meant New Year with street fireworks, but thousands remained without water and boiler breakdowns were legion, to say nothing of the increase in swine flu. The Spanish owned major UK airports, hadn’t got the hang of snow ploughs, not much call for them in Malaga, so re fuelling planes took days and hundreds of dossing passengers ran out of good will.

In January the snow started to fall again, and we, even in the southwest, had another mighty cold spell with temperatures falling to minus 4 -10. It was difficult to comprehend global warming.

It’s now mid March and the snow is coming again. The sky may be a Mediterranean blue but the wind is Siberian. There are drifts up north and working their way south to suffocate the profusion of daffodils wild and cultivated that provide so much needed colour. Nothing new in this, Nature’s regular assassination, but it is curious why Evolution hasn’t taught the flighty daffs to stay buttoned up until March has passed into mid April.

So for now it’s back to glacial pavements, and hopes that this time we are a nation of salt reserves, if little else.

On the warmer side, on Saturday, a crowd of 75.000– and I’ll be one of them – will be shouting and singing its way through the penultimate Six Nations Rugby Tournament at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, generating enough heat to warm the city as we emerge like pieces of toast glowing and exuberant if our team has won with caution thrown to the winds.

But hey, thank goodness the Olympics won’t be staged in a UK winter; a UK summer, no problem. Oh yes?

Don’t hold your breath.