I Love the Cold
Don’t get me wrong, I love a baking hot Summer too, but while we seem to get at least a small proportion of glorious Summer days here in Edinburgh we never, ever seem to get anything approaching a proper Winter. Basically, it can be miserable, but it never gets cold. Even now it’s not really what I would call cold, particularly. I grew up in Austria where the Winters got really rather chilly from time to time, and as far as I am concerned this cold snap is a wonderfully welcome change from the usual wind and rain.
I accept that for people out in the middle of nowhere the snow, given how comically unprepared the UK seems to be for such things, can be dangerous and I don’t intend to take the piss, but here in the city I have to confess that all I can think is that I wish it were colder and that there was more snow. There’s just something so nice about that nip on your earlobes which serious cold weather brings, and about how you can actually feel the cold air swirling in your lungs when you breathe in, and how sometimes it’s so cold that your teeth actually hurt.
And the nicest thing about the cold of course, is that you get inside and it’s dark and you can have a nice cuppa, and that tingly feeling of warming up slowly spreads through you. But in any case, I say stop moaning, people of Britain! It’s the fucking Winter – it’s supposed to be cold. That’s what makes Winter fun – it’s the equivalent of blazing sunshine in the Summer or April showers or those cool, clear Autumn days you get when the wind blows the leaves about the place. Stop fucking moaning and enjoy it for Christ’s sake.
Mind you, as I pointed out to my father who is from Canada, for the British, moaning about something probably is enjoying it, in a perverse sort of way.
FOUND – Cold Climate Culture
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British inability to deal with snow is slightly embarrassing. A couple of centimetres and hundreds of schools close? How is it that people in other countries are capable of driving in snow, while the government advises us to only leave our houses if absolutely necessary?
Maybe we’ve all got seasonal affective disorder and just can’t deal with it.
The whole country is about 100 times more interesting when it’s covered in snow, but people just don’t seem to see it that way.
I’ve had to turn the radio off. If folk are not moaning about their journey to work, they’re moaning about having to work from home. And if they’re not moaning about the dangers of the school run, they’re moaning about having to look after their kids at home when the schools are closed.
Meanwhile, in towns and cities inside the arctic circle, life goes on as usual. This whole country needs to cowboy up and just get on with things. Go out and make a snow man or something.
i for one will not love the next utility bill hitting the mat.
other countries can drive in snow as it happens quite regularly as can most people who live up north and they have the correct equipment like snow tyres not the bloody low profile things that make my SAAB handle like a steel tray on ice.
This is just Matthew’s inner Canadian coming out.
Frankly there is no way of feeling happier for that tottering outside with the dogs and a shovel and clearing the driveway while The Misses prepares a celebratory cup of coffee and a bacon sandwich. Anytime it is bitingly cold and the sun is shining it is impossible to be unhappy.
Ah…..but Matthew can say he’s happy about it all cos:-
(a) he’s young and nimble and doesnt fall over easily and hurt himself on icy pavements;
(b) he has a faceful of hair that keeps him snug;
(c) he’s stinking rich and can afford to turn his central heating up a few degrees; and
(d) he’s fuckin used to it coming from Greater Germany.
Says JC from Greater England.
We got 20+ inches of snow here in Virginia on the weekend before Christmas and it was sublime. This was my house at about the 10-inch mark:
http://hphotos-snc3.fbcdn.net/hs052.snc3/13944_206564583169_641208169_3226230_6769053_n.jpg
Then it just kept coming. The snow I shoveled off the driveway was piled up 5 feet high and my kids built an igloo so deep that I basically couldn’t see them when they were all the way inside. I have a 4-wheel-drive Subaru, and without it I wouldn’t have been able to get off my street for three days. Now it’s completely gone. Supposed to get a few inches tonight, though.
I swear i’ve been on the receiving ends of more “how come brits are so damn moany…back where I come from they live in big snow tunnels for four months of the year…oh when oh when will they stop moaning” moans than the british moans they describe. Metamoans.
My office is full of chat about the cold, but mostly of the “doesn’t it look lovely” variety, peppered with falling on the ice anecdotes and practical advice about hot water bottle suppliers. Given a cold snap of this magnitude seems to happen once every twenty years or so i’m not enormously ashamed that the infrastructure buckles a bit, but it’s probably worth reminding people that getting stuck in a car for five hours while wearing a t-shirt and cords is going to suck quite a bit.
It’s great! More snow Bigger snow please
I left the house with slightly wet hair this morning and it froze before I got to the bus stop. Now that’s a memory from childhood as well!
And the Water of Leith is freezing over around the edges as well, and it runs pretty fast up by us.
The coldest it gets here in winter is about 2 or 3 degrees Celcuis, and that usually happens in the really early morning and only for a week or so, tops. The closest snow is hours away, and usually made by machines anyway. I hate winter and anything below 10 degrees I usually pronounce as ‘freezing’ but I really have no bloody idea what cold is!
We’ve been getting loads of pictures on the news about all the storms and whatnot and friends have been sending photos of the snow as well. It looks so pretty, but I’d be more than content to view it from my window than be out and about in it! You British are made of stronger stuff than us Aussie folk, that’s for sure.
That photo of the UK you’ve used at the top of the post is astonishing isn’t it?
It’s the main spread on the front cover of the Metro paper this morning, I didn’t realise it was a current photo of the country from a NASA sattellite.
What really gives you a reference point is that little corner of south west Ireland emerging from beneath that swirl of cloud that still appears green in the photo. It’s clearly outside the area of Scandinavian high pressure that’s parked above us at the moment diverting the gulf stream.
Cool.
I am well glad I am in my new flat this Winter – if I was in St Stephen Street I would probably be a popsicle by now. So fuck the cold. Actually – fuck shitty rented flats with shitty insulation and shitty heating. Whats the deal with that? I hate paying some other bastards mortgage for them while I can’t get one myself. I CLEARLY CAN AFFORD ONE. Ive been paying some bastards one for 6 years without fail. Bastards.
Random rant there. Sorry. Anyways – haven’t been stalking Toad recently. Not because I am not attracted to him anymore. It’s just I have been running late these days.
Oh – now I remember what I was actually going to say….I hope this mega cold Winter means a mega hot Summer.
That would also be a very good thing.
Totally – its good lying in the meadows looking at helicopters.