I don’t know about global warming, but we just don’t
seem to have winters like we used to do.
The worst I remember here was 1981-82. I think it froze on Christmas Day and didn’t
thaw again until March. Temperatures in
Gloucestershire dropped to as low as –20 degrees Celsius.
We also had the snowfall to go with it. Along our drive, which runs between two
hedges, the snow filled in the gap completely, and we were faced with a drift
about six feet deep and twenty yards long.
We couldn’t get the car out for over a fortnight.
I remember walking to and from work, with hands numb
in the thickest gloves I could find and lips so cold I could hardly move them
to talk.
Many a year, it seems to me, we had to shovel the
snow off the drive, made snowballs and snowmen in the garden, or walked across
the fields to hurtle down a fine tobogganing slope. One year we went to watch people skiing on Cleeve Hill.
Now, every year, Juliet says, ‘Are we going to get
some snow, Daddy?’ but when it comes, it’s no more than a dusting. We see more ice when we open the freezer.
Maybe I’m tempting fate, but, after the wettest
autumn for 200 years, there can’t be much up there left to come down, can
there?
I leave you with the memory of the last decent fall
we had, and you can see what size Jay was then.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
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Created 29 November 2000