That white stuff again

It snowed again last Thursday; they were predicting up to 6 inches, but (thank god) it didn't eventuate. Expecting a huge snowfall I woke up a few times during the night and looked out the window, and was finally rewarded around 5:00am with the sight of flakes flying horizontally through the air and everything covered in white. I even managed to leave the house with a smile on my face!

Unfortunately by the time we got to the bus stop the snow was turning to sludge, and the reality of living with snow was setting in. The sludge makes it incredibly slippery underfoot, and the snow flakes eventually melt and soak you through. Your shoes get saturated and your toes feel frozen. You know the transport system is going to fail, and that you are going to be short staffed at work with all the people who are snow bound.

Surprisingly, it was probably the fastest trip I've had into work this year - there was just no one around! I actually walked across Victoria Station concourse without having to dodge anyone, which is totally unheard of. Everyone in London had expected the worst so no one was relying on public transport, which meant there where no crowds to slow everything down. As Alanis says, "isn't that ironic, don't you think?"

Once in the building at work you could look out the windows and appreciate the snow, falling past the window and covering all the buildings. Below are photos of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, taken from my floor at work (bad photos, lots of reflection from the lights in the building).

Below is the rooftop lawn on the building outside my window. A couple of hours after this photo there were about 20 people having a snowball fight there, but I forgot I had the camera so didn't get photos of it!

Musings on the toilet.....

I don't know what I ate yesterday, but it definitely hasn't agreed with me. I was up all last night vomiting, which in turn meant I kept Sarah up all night as well. Today I haven't wanted to stray to far from the toilet and I'm bored as hell. All this time on my hands has led me to reflect on a few of the quirks I have experienced while living with the British...

• Ice cream vans sell an ice cream called a 99p (pence) flake, basically a soft serve ice cream in a cone with half a flake stuck in it. Problem is it costs £1.25!
• In London it is a sin to stand on the left hand side of an escalator - the left hand side is purely for people who wish to walk down the escalators. No standing side by side with your loved one, both of you have to stand on the right with one in front of the other. The immediate outrage caused when you stand on the left is amazing - pity all the unknowing tourists!
• You can park on whatever side of the road you want. It is common to be driving down the road and have oncoming traffic veer across the road into your lane to park on your side of the road.
• This one is my personal irritant. When driving in the fast lane on a motorway, you are considered to be driving in the 'outside' lane. Surely this is the inside lane, as you are in the middle of the road! Post comments please!
• Over here 'pants' are underwear. I walked into an outdoor store recently and said to the salesman ' I need some waterproof pants....' Sarah and the salesman eventually got off the floor still giggling.
• I'm not going to start telling you about what people think when you refer to your thongs....
  
• Most sandwich shops only have prepackaged sandwiches; you know the ones you can find in the bottom of the fridge at most service stations. There are sandwich shops where the whole wall is a refrigerated cabinet, full of sandwiches in cardboard boxes. They taste ok, but you can tell they aren't fresh. A shop that makes the sandwich for you while you wait is a special find.
• And speaking of food everything you buy at the supermarket only lasts 6 weeks once opened. I remember back home you would open a bottle of tomato sauce and throw it out when the use by date is up. Not here, 6 weeks after opening it is meant to be thrown.

Enough ranting, in the time it has taken me to write this I've been to the toilet twice, and I think it's calling me again.....

First real snow

When the alarm went off this morning we both lay there trying to wake up, and then the voice on the radio said "wake up everyone, it snowed last night!" We both jumped up and looked out the window and everything was white and still. I saw it snow about a year ago, but that only lasted a couple of minutes and melted within half an hour. This was different, a carpet that covered everything.

The snow was so soft and fresh, barely touched by footprints when we left the house at 7am. On the train trip in I didn't even need a paper as the snow everywhere was amazing. Once in London, the roads and paths were covered in slush, but the snow still covered everything else. It was a great sight to start the day!

Our new suits

Diving again on Sunday. The sun was out, and the water was cold. The only thing of interest we saw was a bird that kept down to us when we were about 6m down and 'flying' around us. I've never seen anything like that before, you could see the air trapped around it's feathers making it look like it had quicksilver all over it.

Both dives we mainly concentrated on getting used to the dry suits. It really feels like you are learning to dive all over again, and on the first dive i spent 10mins just trying to sort out my bouyancy, but it is gradually getting better.

Bah Humbug

Well, it's over and done with for another year. I've just spent three days at Sarah's mum's house doing nothing but eat, drink and sleep. I know Christmas is meant to be festive time but let me point out a few facts about my Christmas -

• there was nothing on TV, despite the 999 channels on SkyTV
• it was cold but not cold enough to snow
• the sky was grey and it was dark by 4:30pm
• opening presents is set to a timetable due to some weird ass family tradition - presents from friends after breakfast, presents from family after lunch
• despite hinting all year, I saw another boxing day without a motorbike

Having said that, the food was really good, we found a bottle of Jim Beam Black Label and some reallllly old dark rum in the depths of the grog cabinet, and you sleep a lot more peacefully when there is an absence of garbage trucks or pizza delivery guys . And I got some cool pressies (eventually)....

We both miss you all and hope you had a fantastic Christmas.

Disclaimer: If you are reading this Carina, I really did enjoy myself.

Wet drysuits

On Saturday we finally went diving in the drysuits. I wasn't sure we were going to make it as we went ice-skating at a 10:00pm session on Friday night, but we managed to get up early, the sun was out, and the weatherman promised there would be temperatures of 10-12 degrees throughout the day.

When we arrived it must have taken us about an hour and a half to actually get in the water.

I thought all our equipment had been correctly adjusted to use with the drysuits, but I was wrong. It's really infuriating when you have to pull every hose off your first stage and put them on the other way around so that all the hoses reach where they are meant to reach. About an hour later we actually got into the drysuits, but then had to put the rest of the kit on. You really feel like an amateur when working with new gear, with my usual kit I reckon I could put it on blindfolded with one hand tied behind my back, but this was totally foreign to me. So many unexpected difficulties - restricted movement due to the thickness and newness of the drysuit; 5mm gloves that are difficult to put on and take off, and are so thick you can't feel what you are doing through them; hoses that need to be attached to the drysuit but end up somewhere behind your head; hoses that just get tangled up and nearly strangle you; fins that don't fit over the drysuit boots; fools that are so preoccupied with what their wife is doing that they neglect to turn their own air on.....

Finally we got into the water for a weight check. Five minutes later we're out of the water to get more weight (that's a total of 28 pounds folks!), trying to avoid the killer swan patrolling the lake. Did you know that swans hiss? Vicious things!

The other vicious thing was the harassment from the locals who thought it hysterical that it had taken us so long to get into the water, only to be out again within minutes.

Back in the water, submerge, float.... Being totally enveloped by water but only feeling it around your face is a very weird sensation, it takes a couple of minutes to get used to. But let me tell you how warm it is.... Not very! I think we both expected it to be to warm in the suits as it is a sealed environment encasing your body, and one would assume that your body would warm this space up even if the surrounding water is 10 degrees. I’m not saying I was cold, I just thought I would be warm. Despite this I think the suits are a great investment, it is just going to take a few dives to get used to them.