In the bleak midwinter

Ohhh and I was doing so well with my resolution to post every day a la Expateek. Cue a whole string of unpublished, half-started drafts, left unfinished because I simply couldn't stand to look at the screen any more.

It's been a while since I woke up to falling snow in the UK (actually it's been a while since I spent a whole winter in the UK).

-Wake up, it's eight thirty and it's snowing.

There's no-one like my Dad for giving you a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

It was true: I drew back the curtain and there was a pretty powdering of snow just tinted green by the lawn underneath. A fine dust was falling from the sky, rather like powdered sugar sprinkled onto one of those giant baked jam doughnuts we're no longer allowed to eat in obesity-crisis Britain*.

This time last year I was in Kraków and my brother was stranded at Balice by Easyjet and the Wrong Kind of Snow.

And, talking of the wrong kind of snow, we in Britain are spectacularly bad at dealing with Weather.

When I was small, we used to get up extra-early on snowy days to listen to Radio Kent presenters reading out the lovely long list of all the primary schools in the area that were closed due to 'bad weather' (read half an inch of fairy dust).
Ours never was. And sadly it was only down the road so no excuses there either.

Public transport, now that just shuts down completely. Imagine if, in Poland, or Sweden, or even the north of Italy, trains simply stopped running because the snow was the wrong sort. I kid you not - it's got to be full-on Antarctic tundra for the trains to roll on it: this powdery stuff just doesn't cut the mustard and no self-respecting train driver'll run his engine through that mush (nasty muddy splatters all over the windscreen).

Better still, people go nuts, queuing up for petrol, stocking up on tinned food, working from home...

National Emergency! Three millimetres of snow swamp central Kent! Duck and cover!

In any case, it's immaterial since by lunchtime the pretty flakes had turned to icy drizzle and all the lovely sparkly snow had been washed away - with the exception of a few sad-looking lumps of slush in front of a neighbour's house: their children's forlorn attempt at making snowmen.

*although rumour has it that Alastair Darling may be about to announce pre-Budget Doughnut Breaks so we can all comfort-eat our way through the credit crunch. Save money on heating! Put on an additional inch of lard! Extra Weightwatchers Points for all (although we'll be paying for it with new calorie restrictions for 2009)!