The Day after Tomorrow

London has had about five inches of snow and has therefore ground to a halt. Global warming indeed.

I write this in my study in Springheel Towers, looking out over a quiet street thickly blanketed with snow. Well, thickly blanketed for London, anyway. In Scandinavia, North America or my beloved Russia, this would be a minor event. But of course it's a one in 20 year incident for us, so one can understand why it knocks the Great Wen about a bit.

Thus it was that this morning I donned my heavy boots (made in Northhampton byAlfred Sargent), layered up in thick pullovers and (to my disgust) fleece, picked up a trekking pole and, with the words "I am just going outside and may be some time", began the treacherous journey to the Tube.

Unusually, the snow was dry: normally, when it does snow in London, it melts very quickly and one is soaked before one has travelled a couple of hundred yards. But not today. The snow made satisfying "scrotch" noises as one trod on it. It had that entrancing muffling effect, silencing the streets. But compressed, it turned into an evil glissade. The side roads were like ice rinks. The main roads, a sea of slush, navigated by swearing van drivers and petrified commuters. Pedestrians hobbled past, swathed in bizarre outfits, vaguely resembling the Grand Armee in retreat from Moscow. I gripped my trekking pole and the memsahib's arm; these are treacherous conditions for a crippled middle aged man.

Oddly, given its ability to fail in absolutely perfect summer weather, the tube was functioning with what purported to be no more than minor delays. Unfortunately, it was impossible to get onto a train because of overcrowding. This being the only way into town, the booking hall resembled those photographs of Saigon as the North Vietnamese closed in. Huge crowds waiting for a way out of the place. It was, of course, uncomfortably hot as we were all swathed in coats, scarves, inappropriate hats etc.

In disgust, the memsahib and I turned back. We tottered uphill, trying to avoid the crevasse fields on the main road which had so nearly claimed us earlier, and encountered the bizarre sight of a wheelchair, abandoned and half buried in the snow. Great God, this is an awful place...

And so we found ourselves returning to the bosom of our home, red faced and cold-fingered, slightly embarassed at our failed attempt to reach the office. There was, of course, only one thing to be done: We put the kettle on and had a cup of tea and some rather nice shortbread biscuits.

We are British, after all.