Leading up to Christmas, the weather in London was
relatively mild. Many people said that
it didn’t feel like Christmas at all, but after living in London for 20 years,
I know that Christmas being over doesn’t mean that winter is over! So when the forecast came for a cold snap and
snow last week, my sons’ excitement levels reached an all time high. Of course their main preoccupation was
whether or not school would be cancelled, so when the flurries started to fall
on Friday, they were slightly disappointed that school wouldn’t be affected. But that didn’t prevent them from looking
out of the window every few minutes to see how much was accumulating, and
eventually venturing out to throw a few snowballs.
London is not a city that gets a lot of snow, so the
disruption from what seems to be a minor snowfall can be major. But one of the wonderful things about the
disruption is that it forces us all to slow down and to take a look at what is
happening all around us. The landscape
of London changes so dramatically, even with just a light dusting of snow. The parks and garden squares which are
normally green are transformed into pristine fields of white and the branches
of the many trees covered in a layer of snow are so beautiful. The snow also dampens the sounds of the city
and it becomes eerily silent; while the light changes too and there is a
certain glow that can be seen in the reflection of the snow.
Having grown up in the northeast of the United States, snow
was a normal part of winter life and could last for months. By the end of February I couldn’t stand the
site of it any more and was desperate for the arrival of spring. Here snowfall is such a rare event that I have
learned to step back and appreciate the disruption as an opportunity to admire
the beauty of London cloaked in a blanket of white.
by Eva Stock
Visit the FOCUS website www.focus-info.org
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