Snow Daze

Well, we certainly didn't expect to have a snow day here in London. But sure enough, it started snowing last night, flurries at first, and we said, "Oh look, it's starting to stick." Anne and I stayed up to watch the Super Bowl, which started at 11:20p or so here. She made it until the middle of the second quarter, I lasted to the bitter end at 3:30a. By the end of The Boss's great set, there was probably about 2" or so on the ground.




We awoke this morning (everyone else in the house much earlier than I, of course) to find it still snowing. Lena checked The Royal School's website to find much to no one's surprise that school was canceled. (Update 5:00p: school has already been canceled for tomorrow, also). There was perhaps 4" on the ground, a fairly unusual occurrence in London from what we understand. What was most striking, however, was the eerie quiet -- unlike every other day here, we rarely heard a car go by, no sound of buses or horns, no planes flying overhead (the airports were closed). Only the occasional sound of kids out playing in the snow. Evidently, the city is pretty much shutdown; the headline on today's Evening Standard was "Snow shuts down London - and there's more to come," saying the 6" by this afternoon was the most snow in London in 18 years. Some of the Tube lines weren't operating at all, and the rest with "severe delays." Many universities were closed. Here's the view this morning out our patio.



The girls will most likely not have school again tomorrow, so we headed out for a walk in the snow and to see if there's anything left at Sainsbury's. We walked along the canal for a block. There were few cars on the side streets, and apparently not an abundance of (any?) snow shovels for the sidewalks. On the main roads in Islington by the Tube, though, the cars and buses were out. One can only wonder if we visitors from the snow belt brought this to the Londoners?