So I’m busy writing an extremely important letter to the Met Office on the subject of SNOW. (For non-UK readers, the Met(eorological) Office is our publically-funded national weather forecasting/monitoring service.) Feel free to knit and crochet whilst I talk. Oh, and help yourself to some of that wine.
So what do you think of what I’ve drafted so far?
Dear Sirs/Madams (Madams? That sounds dodgy.)
I am writing to respectfully request that you cease your current practice of knowingly and deliberately tormenting me with forecasts of snowfall that you later retract shortly before they are due to occur. Every single day for the past week, since winter finally arrived in Oxfordshire, I’ve checked the weather forecast online, and each and every time it’s promised snowfall in precisely 48 hours’ time. But always, as the hour of anticipated blizzards draws close, you move the predicted snow forward so that it’s once again an elusive 48 hours away.
As a fellow human being, I can only ask you to examine your consciences. Do you consider your behaviour to be fair? If I, as a clinical psychologist, continually told my patients that I’d see them in two days’ time but never delivered, do you honestly think that I’d still be drawing a salary from the National Health Service? It’s just like the sign outside a pub that I used to drive past on the way to my parents’ old house that said, ‘FREE BEER TOMORROW’. Obviously the landlord set out this sign to amuse passers-by, safe in the knowledge that he wouldn’t actually be pouring anyone a free pint. And mildly amusing it was too for at least the first twenty-six times that I saw it, but this isn’t about something as trivial as beer, this is about snow. There are two small children and a child-at-heart here who ask nothing more than for a fair chance to rampage around in the slush, lobbing snowballs at the Stoic Spouse. Would you consider this an unreasonable demand?
And yes, I do realize that snow can be inconvenient in a lot of ways. I say this as someone who once had to take a spade and dig her car out of the car park at work, in order to even attempt to get home. Am I bad for having found this enormously good fun? In those days, I lived closer to work than I do now, and as the snow rapidly deepened and the dark got darker, I just made it home before the roads became impassable and drivers were forced to spend the night immobile and shivering on the dual carriageway. That said, when I came through on the road’s re-opening, I noticed that people had built some pretty funky snow sculptures on the central reservation, so maybe there was a sense of camaraderie and fun that snowy night.
I can’t help noticing that many parts of the United Kingdom have received at least a flurry of snowfall these past few days, yet south Oxfordshire has once again been neglected. Do we not pay our taxes the same as everywhere else? And so I ask how you, as a publically-funded body, can justify such inequality? Why is it right that folks in Birmingham get to go sledging but we don’t?
Perhaps I’m overreacting? You see, I’m writing this as a 43-year-old woman who has amassed a lifetime of bitterness over hardly ever being where the snow is. I swear that the only thing that’s stopped me going on a once-in-a-life trip to Antarctica is the knowledge that there’d be no snow when I got there, which would be kinda bad for planetary welfare.
I still remember (and I’m being deadly serious, here) the heartbreak of how at an impressionable and formative age – 35, say – I watched a gathering crescendo of weather forecasts promising the absolute certainty of heavy snowfall overnight, right where I lived. We were to be at the very epicentre of the apocalyptic mega-blizzard. These projections left no room for doubt. At last, I thought, a lifetime’s yearnings will be fulfilled. So I went to bed excited, but somehow managed a few hours’ sleep. And then, it was morning. The morning. For the very first time in my life, I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, morning person. With a deep breath, I flung wide the curtains to see… a grey, drizzly day, with nary a hint of a snowflake. Never in my life have I been more disappointed. (Well, almost never, but let’s not go there.) Weather forecasters, please know that I have never since forgiven you, and that this let-down has cast a long, stubborn shadow over my emotional wellbeing ever since.
So I finish by asking you whether you sleep easy at night, knowing that your callous actions have caused such distress to a semi-innocent knitter and her small twins? Also, I politely request that you reconsider your behaviour. Please may we have some snow, not in 48 hours’ time, but now? Thank you.
Respectfully yours,
TheTwistedYarn
Is it OK, do you think? Letters of complaint are so tricky to get right, don’t you think? Shall I send it off by first class mail?
Meanwhile in other news, there is to be a rather marvellous giveaway on this ‘ere blog, very soon. Hurrah! Details just being finalised.
The same thing is happening here in Northern California. We’re always just five hundred feet below the snow that was supposed to fall a thousand feet below us!
And where did you used to live? The moored boats remind me of the time we took a boating trip on the Broads in Norfolk. So much fun!
Dear Mrs Twisted,
Please append my signature to your letter of complaint for my location of South Hampshire.
I have experienced very similar disappointment on numerous occasions and agree with everything you say in your letter.
Good luck with getting a response from the Met Office!
Love & hugs
Now you’ve got me thinking: maybe we should start a petition? Happy to add your signature. 🙂
Please add North Gloucestershire to this list of snowless areas! You’d think this rural spot twixt Herefordshire and Worcestershire, nestling near the Malverns and near the picturesque hills near Cheltenham, would receive it’s fair share of the white stuff….but no….it’s reserved for the Cotswolds…to make their impossibly beautiful villages look even better!
You may as well add west Oxford so that list too. So disappointed!
I think you should create a petition with your letter! In the East Midlands it’s just the same, we live in a bowl (not the mixing kind you understand) and the snow moves around the top edges but never falls inside. Someone must’ve put meteorological cling film on the top. Still no snow today but everywhere is bright white from the beautiful frost that has managed to get into the hollow. It’s a start!
An excellent letter and it should be sent asap. You may want to make one small change though. There has been no sledding in Birmingham so far this winter. There were a few snow flurries, but the few brave snowflakes that managed to make the ground soon vanished, leaving slush and ice and general slipperiness.
Proof of this is that the trains were still running…
It hardly ever snowed when I was a child – the forecast would promise, but the promise was rarely fulfilled. I remember the plummeting disappointment of waking up expecting a white world and getting a grey one instead. I got a sledge for my 10th birthday and I never got to use it – by the time it snowed again I’d got to the age when snow was just a damn nuisance stopping me going out.
Maybe try knitting some snow? Just a suggestion. In the meantime I’ll pray for snow in south Oxfordshire, but I’ll also continue to pray for no snow in South Wales. Particularly as the heater in my car isn’t working. 😉
Send it off straightaway, then book yourself some tickets for Michigan, across the pond, take a vacation…bring the twinnage. We have a great hotel and a nice little town over here, and snow is (well, it’s trying tomelt, but it’s January, it will be back) expected before February, or by valentine’s day. Come on over, we have enough snow to share, once we get some more…
A very perfect letter, I dearly hope it will encourage some snow to fall! x
A petition may just do it but I think it should be delivered by hand, proving we haven’t had to dig ourselves out of drifts to do so. Snowdrifts would mean so much more time for yarn-related activity, the perfect opportunity so suspend all daily activity (except for the wine pouring, natch, plus the occasional snack to keep up strength). SS could do jigsaws/play ukulele with the TT while you got on with more important stuff. Mine could fix those drawer runners, get to grips with that flat pack step-stool I’ve been badgering him to do (I’d do them myself but that time could be spent doing other things – you know exactly what I mean. Though a great idea (which we may yet have to resort to), Annabellefranklinauthor, we don’t want them to think we’re giving up on the real stuff just yet…
You can try, Ms Twisted. Be grateful you don’t live further south.
Down here on the coast (Portsmouth) we very rarely get any snow, though we do get the odd impressive frost.
Any snow which does turn up is rarely an inch deep, generally melts, leaving treacherous patches of ice for the following morning, and is gone in a couple of days.
City centre snow rarely looks pretty for long. That and it’s quite a way to the nearest slope for sledging!
Your experience is interesting. Down here in Southampton I have given up any hope of a flurry of snow this winter; it is so mild. But I too have been following the predicted temperature on the weather forecasts. According to the Met Office that is 3degC for midday today. Past experience leads me to believe that when I look at the actual temperature at Southampton Airport tomorrow it will show as having been much higher. Just beginning to think that Southampton Airport weather station was in a sheltered spot but reading the above I think maybe the Met Office are just trying to fool us!
I agree with you, wholeheartedly, I am 61 and live in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. My young Grandchildren (2 & 4 years old ) have never seen snow and what is more do not understand why there is no snow at Christmas, there is on all the things they watch on TV. There should be a law against `snowless winters`. Post your letter, I will willingly back you up. From `snowlorn` Tricia x
Oh
Phil, your letter left me chuckling. You can have all my snow from here in North Wales. I live on a steep and winding hill and having done the “two man bob” in my car, with both brakes full on, ( eyes shut most of the way down), I promise I really don’t want any snow here; so enjoy .
I LOVE it!!! I certainly do love your writing style and I’m smiling right now!
It isn’t any better over here in Pickering, Ontario, Canada, as far as the snow goes. At least our weather forecasters haven’t taunted us with snow predictions. We had green grass for Christmas and have only had two tiny snowfalls which have mostly been melted away by subsequent warming trends. It rained yesterday for goodness sake! Usually January never gets above freezing (0C) and it is 2C out there now. They are currently predicting colder temps but no snow for the next 10 days. 🙁 Having lived in southern Alabama where it never snows for the first 42 years of my life, I have enjoyed getting white winters for the last 14 years and miss it this year. This Christmas reminded me of down there, warm enough we opened the windows! Global warming sucks.
Yes. Your letter and its subject matter are of VITAL importance. Why? Because humans deserve a good covering of snow every single year. Otherwise there is scant reason for the season. At this time of year I too am glued to the weather forecast, eagerly awaiting frozen participation and the pure magic it brings. I long for all activities to come to a halt, as they do in Memphis Tn with even one inch of snow. So don’t mess around with me when it comes to snow. Glad to know I’m not the only one!
Currently minus 26 with a windchill of minus 33 and it’s (where else) Canada so we’re on centigrade. Lots of snow but you can’t play in it, it’s toooo cold. You HAVE to watch our Rick Mercer’s rant of a couple of years ago. Look it up on YouTube as ‘RMR seven day forecast’. We all think it’s hilarious although in the middle of the country (Winnipeg) we NEVER have to worry about snow at Christmas or cold, it arrives every year wanted or not!
Substitute rain for snow, and we are in the same boat. They keep promising rain, then it moves to the north. This is the start of year five of our drought. I now have a running internal commentary, occassionally blurted aloud such as “yes, I’ll believe it when I see it.” We had a “downpour” earlier in the week at 5:30 in the morning. It lasted two minutes. That was it.
Your photos are lovely. I’m in love with that first one. Those icicles! That view! Gorgeous.
A book club friend just returned from Antarctica. She saw seals, penguins, distant whales…and snow. Don’t rule it out.
Meanwhile, I hope you get some fluffy, white snow soon.
Yes! Send it! I prefer to use my own weather forecasting method. Look out of the window 😉 In my case, I see snow (but I am in Canada, after all). We have more than usual this year, though not so much that it has become unmanageable.
As concerned as you are with weather prediction inaccuracy, it’s impossible for them to know what weather we’re going to have. That’s why they call them ‘predictions’. Sometimes they even try and announce the weather forecast as early as 7 days in advance but even they have no idea if that is going to be accurate. They would talk about upcoming storms or whatnot but they might or might not arrive after all. Weather can’t be predicted with accuracy days in advance, it changes so fast that it would be impossible to know. What they give is what they think would happen but that’s about it. Sometimes storms dissipate hours earlier than anticipated and there goes the forecast for the day.
The excitement that my daughter and all her school friends displayed yesterday when they were faced with a small frozen puddle made me realise just how little proper cold weather they have seen in recent years. The flood water they have got far too used to in recent weeks is really not safe (owing to raw sewage/drowning risk) for play. It’s a shame that the biggest snowfall York has had in the past decade was about ten weeks after she was born when she was far too little to enjoy it. Hoping for some of the white stuff soon!
I feel your pain. o.O
Here, across the pond, we have decided to completely ignore those dodgy meteorologists and have gone straight to appealing to the snow itself. I know that seems quirky, but here’s hoping it works. Below is one such appeal:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=snow+Adele+cover+mix&page=2
Sorry, wrong link above. Here ’tis.
This video is a hoot! Love the song adaptation.
Please imagine my chagrin at being able to go barefoot in my garden on the 12th December in – wait for it – Ottawa, Canada!
How will anyone be able to recognize our country without its customary white coating? 🙂
A day of snow is nice, isn’t it? So far we’ve only had one set of flurries preceding torrential rain.
They’ve done it again. Promised that we would wake up to a wonderful winter wonderland and what have we got? A thin layer of frost. Bah. I can’t go sledging on frost. Or make a frostman and throw frostballs with my children. Send that letter! This just Won’t Do.
Send it. In fact have you thought of raising a petition to get a debate in the House of Commons?
Loved your post. You really do get the impression that the Met Office and the media in general really want the snow to fall heavily so they can devote the whole day’s news to this disappearing phenomenon. And don’t we all want to be stranded in our houses unable to venture out to work?
You may not be having any snow, but I’m very grateful for your achival digging and bringing forth snow pics – these will be longingly looked at as we go(suffer too strong a word?) through another HOT week ‘ere Down Under.
As always, you made me chuckle x
Fanastic letter! I really hope you get some snow soonxx
“I can’t help noticing that many parts of the United Kingdom have received at least a flurry of snowfall these past few days, yet south Oxfordshire has once again been neglected. Do we not pay our taxes the same as everywhere else? And so I ask how you, as a publically-funded body, can justify such inequality? Why is it right that folks in Birmingham get to go sledging but we don’t?”
I soo feel with you.Even in Norway the snow didn’t came before now.I will ask the Snowgod to send you a lot of cold-enough snow to allow you to have fun in it, and photo it ( which you do marvelously I think) – and to spite the weatherforcasters, I will ask them gods to let it snow when they have forecasted rain.
let us know when it happens please
looking forward to that blogpost with new snow-photos
knitting a hat while I wait
Leelah
Is that really snow? Is that cold, delicious, tasty (apart from the yellow which tends to err on the bitter side) snow? I remember snow. Not that I ever saw much of it till I moved to frigid (HA!) Tasmania. Now-a-days I live in the Gobi desert. I herd my yak and traverse the blistering tundra’s in order to eke out a simple life in a parched and barren wasteland. I also remember “water” and “rain”. I would give away all of my snowy remembrances for some decent solid rain, once a week for the next few months. I am going to send Earl over in a post pack. He want’s to turn your snow yellow.
Well thank you, now that you’ve convinced me that Earl is far, far, far more of a sweetie than he initially appeared in the first photo I saw. But he may be disappointed in our lack of the white-with-potential-for-yellow stuff. It’s. Just. COLD. (Do you remember cold? Can you sort of imagine it?)
Nope. Cold is dead to me.
Loved your photos and the letter is priceless . . . DO send it! And I think the idea of a petition is perfect. I have to say that I think your promised snow has landed here in Edmonton, AB. Not as much as you would probably enjoy, but more than I am happy with. So feel free to help yourself . . .
Like Carol, as soon as I began reading I was reminded of Rick Mercer’s rant “the 7`day forecast”. Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkDvqQKGgDA
I shall do my best to re-direct the next snowfall in your direction (but you may have to share with Tasmania; theirs will arrive in a melted state and I’m sure they will enjoy that!
Ahhh, please may I have your snow? Oh, and thanks for the YouTube link – now THAT was funny. The Oxfordshire version would be the opposite right now – lots of +1 (sorry), with a -1 in a few days’ time, just to keep our hopes up…
Meanwhile, please do try not to freeze.