SNOW DAYS

Snow in Manchester yesterday

We've been receiving a continuous flow of emailed snow-photos frm our family in the UK which prompted me to watch England’s Channel 4 news broadcasts on the internet , showing reports of snowbound Britain grinding to a total standstill .

There’s something irresistible about the white fluffy stuff which visits our shores so rarely.

Snow in Ramot - we do get it sometimes

I remember one pretty heavy ( by our standards) snowstorm, I think it was in 1998 ( feel free to correct me) when everything closed down. No schools, no public transport, no driving unless absolutely necessary …. And of course no deliveries to our local macolet.

The truck from ‘Angels’ bakery got as far as it could towards the entrance to our neighborhood along the main Ramot road. Then it opened up its doors and the driver sold what ever he had to whoever managed to clamber over the snow and reach his truck.
All our children who were tall enough to stand up in the deep snow scrambled as quickly as they could over the fluffy mounds to bring home their ‘booty’ – fresh rolls, pitot and loaves of bread which we happily shared with all our neighbors .

One of our daughters was newly engaged and I remember the cheers and excitement when her intrepid chatan appeared at the door having walked all the way from the center of town – aahh aint love grand?

There was this wonderful cozy feeling of being safe and warm at home, even while the kids were traipsing through the house with snowy, muddy feet. Carrots, buttons, hats, scarves and even jackets were disappearing at an alarming rate to dress the snowmen.
These were the few days when the ‘wellies’ ( Wellington boots) my husband and I still had from ‘ the old days' ,came in very useful and our kids were actually fighting over them instead of laughing at them as they usually did.

For some reason I always made hot soup on snow-days and even got out my knitting needles and started making scarves for the kids (don’t worry the snow always finished long before the scarves did and they waited for the next snow several years later).

Of course I’m talking about the days before most of us had internet and photos of our snow sculptures and igloos usually got distributed together with the pictures of the kids in their Purim outfits and lost some of that ‘we-are-here-now’ feeling .

I’m feeling a sort of longing for snow even as I write this, but today we're out in our shirtsleeves with temperatures of 20 degrees ….........….. and we can’t even manage any rain.