50% chance of rain

So, London weather.

It’s an apt topic because right now I’m sitting before quite possibly the largest snowflakes in the history of time. If not, they’re at least the biggest damned snowflakes I’ve ever seen. But more about snow later.

When I made the decision to move to this part of the world, I was generally greeted with one of two reactions: “That is so fantastic, you’re going to have an amazing time”. Or, perhaps more commonly: “You’re insane. You know it’s cold right?” There was also a third reaction: “Are you sure that’s wise? We are in a global financial crisis.” But that one was mostly thrown at me by my mother and grandfather, who both had a vested interest in scaring the hell out of me. (To this day I still receive articles from my mother regarding the derelict state of the UK.)

Honestly, the job stuff didn’t bother me. Too much. The weather? I was having a harder time warming to the notorious weather.

The week I arrived in London was horrible. The skyline was a constant ominous grey. My flimsy Australian jumpers were clearly going to do diddlysquat. And the skies opened regularly, ridiculing me for daring to challenge them without an umbrella.

It was the middle of summer.

The sting of it was made that much sharper due to the fact I had arrived via New York, where, with the exception of a torrential downpour here and there, the air was hot and the sunshine plentiful. If summer had a Facebook page, I’d be its Number One fan (oh look, it does!) and I was relishing the chance to lap it up in shorts during the month of July (until I suffered a vicious attack by what could only have been a large nation of sandflies). However, after two days in London it was clear that I was faced with the daunting prospect that I may never wear shorts again.

But as I became quickly accustomed to my new life, and I stopped looking for reasons why I would fail at it, the weather stopped bothering me as much. London even eventually laid out her finest for me. August was beautiful. It was warm, and the previously drab buildings positively shone. I spent many an unemployed day lazing in parks, sampling crisps and reading the Twilight series. (It still hurts to think I wasted possibly the most free time I’ll ever have in my life with that drivel, but that’s for another entry.)

After I saw what London could be, I figured I could handle its worst. What’s more, the biting cold that people had taken such enjoyment in warning me about didn’t eventuate through September, or October, or November. And then December hit.

Now for the record, the cold and the darkness are, by and large, manageable. There have been a couple of days where I was in serious danger of losing an appendage, but those times simply served as a reminder that layers are a wise investment. And there is snow. SNOW! The first day I saw snow falling from the office windows, I was straight outside in my suit cavorting merrily, stirring my colleagues to dryly remark, “oh that’s right, you’re Australian.”

What does annoy me about the weather, is not really the weather at all. It’s not the snow, nor the rain, nor the cold. It’s London’s inability to cope with any of these factors. London shuts down. Transport stops. People leave work early with fear in their eyes. There are times when I feel I need to give London a good bitchslap and remind her she’s a major international city. She can’t keep hiding under the covers every time she feels a little frostbite coming on.

A quick example from just two weeks ago. The snow which had fallen was now ice, putting an abrupt end to that love affair, and London succumbed to chaos.

It took me over two hours to get home that day – a journey normally taking no more than 45 minutes. Any form of transport that wasn’t a mile underground simply wasn’t operating and hundreds of people were locked out of major train stations and kept at bay by police officers with dogs. Passengers who were lucky enough to catch a passing bus were soon offloaded and told to walk.

I was lucky, I only had to walk some three kilometres through the sludge and ice. My shoes were soon full of water and it was difficult to keep my footing – making it a very slow, arduous journey. Street lights bled through the mist and the ice rendered everything bleak. It was apocalyptic. Hundreds of weary people shuffled through the streets, hunched over and often ending on their backsides. Cars were banked up, incapable of moving except to slide across the ice. It really was easy to imagine that this could be the end of the world. Or at least, a movie about the end of the world.

Ok, so I suppose it was kind of cool. Although my shoes were ruined. That really did annoy me.