Beautiful/dangerous

Here's something I never thought I'd write: I'm snowed in.

Yes, you read that correctly. I. Am. Snowed. In.

That's snowed in as in 'I stepped out the front door this morning and my foot disappeared into something cold and white that came up to my shin.'

Let's back up and take a slightly round-about way, shall we?

So, yesterday I was at a bit of a loose end. After um-ing and ah-ing for a while I decided to head out to Uxbridge for a squiz around the shops, mainly because I was given a Debenhams voucher for Christmas and I can't ever really remember buying anything in Debenhams except in the one in Uxbridge because it has a Top Man franchise in it, and I quite like Top Man stuff.

I left for Uxbridge just after one in the afternoon. It was chilly, but the sky was blue and the sun was beating down. It was actually quite nice.

Anyway, long story short, I didn't spend the voucher; I couldn't find anything I liked in Top Man apart from a pair of jeans (and I have plenty of those already). I did, however, find some clothes I liked in a few other shops so I quickly left before succumbing to my weak-will and splurging cash on things I didn't really need that I couldn't spend the voucher on.

It was still sunny and brisk as I left. 

A few hours later, after reading some of my book (Two-Up, it's a good-un), having some dinner, and watching 40 Days and 40 Nights ( I taped it off the telly, it was OK - one of Squinty McHartnett's better efforts), I decided to go for a run. Recently I've been making more of an effort to do longer runs, and on Sundays in particular I jump in my car and drive over to Richmond purely for the challenge of running up Richmond Hill (more fool me). Just before leaving, however, I glanced out the window and noticed that it was snowing.

Not much, mind, but a little bit nonetheless.

That being the case I put on three tops.

The drive to Richmond was quite exciting because at one point it was really snowing quite heavily and driving through it reminded me a bit of the streaking star field effect at the beginning of a Star Trek movie, heightened by the fact that I was listening to the soundtrack to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country at the time.

Anyway, I eventually got to Richmond and parked up. The snow wasn't too bad; it was probably about one centimetre deep, and it was nowhere near as cold as I thought it would be (I've run in worse), so I headed off. And it all went rather well.

Until I start looping back towards the car. Because it really started coming down then. To be honest, apart from the fact most of it was going in my eyes, it was actually quite nice. It was great looking back and seeing my footprints in the fresh snow, although some Police officers did drive past me and look at me like I was a weirdo. As I got near to my car I noticed that some of my original footprints were still visible in the snow, and it looked like I'd been swerving a bit at the beginning. That being the case I decided to swerve the other way on my way back; the pattern I left looked remarkably like a strand of DNA. I expect scientists will be discussing the strange patterns in the snow for years to come.

I took this at the end of my run.

Anyway, by the time I got home the snow was probably a few centimetres deep, but nothing extreme. By the time I went to bed it was snowing a bit, but nothing worth worrying about.

But then I woke up at 03:51 this morning, glanced out the window, and the stuff was literally falling out of the sky. It was already about 10 centimetres deep on the cars parked down the road.

I was so excited I could barely get back to sleep.

I woke up properly bang on six o'clock, resolving to get out the door as quickly as possible so that I'd avoid the full-on rush hour. And of course, I factored in plenty of time to clear the car off. Because this is what I was confronted with at 06:30 this morning.

There's a Mini under there, somewhere. Honestly.

One of my neighbours came out while I was clearing the car off and basically suggested that I was insane by trying to drive. Twenty minutes later, with my traction control light flashing away like a light show at an illegal rave I was forced to agree with him and just two miles into my journey I made the decision to turn around and head home. I ended up doing a massive loop just to stay on the main roads, and finally got home about an hour after leaving. After dropping my stuff off in Sparky Towers I hiked (yes, I'm using the word 'hike') up to the main road because I'd seen a few cars having a bit of difficulty as I'd turned into my road and I thought I'd go lend a hand. They'd all been cleared by the time I got there, though, so I just walked around in the snow. 

I think I might go out with my camera later and get some better pictures.

So, here I am now. Snowed in. I've had some porridge, and I'm just about to make a cup of tea. How terribly British of me.