From the Heart… of England: England in the Snow – England To Get a White Christmas

It’s below freezing here in Blighty now and according to the Met Office, we’re due for snow tonight and all over the weekend.  And here’s how my house will look again!

When I was a kid, I used to dream of snow.  My godfather was a carpenter and he lovingly made me the best sledge anyone ever had; big enough for three of us with metal runners for a super-fast descent.  He painted it bright red with a white lightning flash on the side and I loved it.  Trouble was, we barely had enough snow to scrape together a few snowballs on our way to school, let alone enough to use my beautiful scarlet sledge.  So there it stayed, hanging on the wall in the garage.

When we moved to our village twelve Christmases ago, our neighbours asked us with a worried expression, “Do you not have a four-wheel drive?”.  Oh, how we laughed.  As IF we’d ever get snowed in!  And I hung up my sledge on the garage wall and patted it gently, never expecting to be able to use it.

In February this year we got snowed in for eight days.  We’d stocked up on food, we all went skiing on the hill and gathered afterwards in the pub (very handily located at the bottom of said hill).  “So this is global warming?”, I thought to myself.  The schools were closed, the buses stopped and England ground to a halt.

You see, we just aren’t any good at snow in England.  We’re pants at it, actually.

Anywhere in Europe, and anywhere in the US where you get snow regularly everything just carries on, albeit looking rather prettier than normal.

But because we usually only get a cosmetic dusting of snow each year, we just never bother to gear ourselves up for it.  We do a bit of extra grocery shopping, pull out the ski gear and get the logs ready by the hearth.  And I think that’s about it!

So here we are, wondering if this weekend will simply bring us large, pretty, fluttering snowflakes to make everywhere look all Dickensian as we meander through the village to our carol concert at the church on Sunday, or whether we should be expecting the worst and stockpiling rocksalt, shovels and…

…well what should one do, exactly?  You see, I am a complete amateur at this (as are most Brits).  Maybe I should be waxing the runners on my lovely sledge?  Buying chains for my car tyres (can one buy snow chains in England)?  Making hearty soups?

It feels VERY unBritish to not to simply “keep calm and carry on”!  That’s what we’re supposed to always do.  Effortlessly.  No fuss.  Just do it.

Do what, exactly? Could anyone from the Northern States who’s ‘good at snow’ give me a few tips here, please?

Ta awfully!

Anna x

The National Trust in the Fall – Fall in Britain

The Telegraph has put together a lovely series of images featuring various National Trust properties in all their fall splendor.

Check it out here.

Dispatches from the East: Beer, There, and Everywhere

So spring has hit us this week in East Anglia, the low clouds and drizzle of winter parting to reveal a sun which suddenly remembers, ‘Ah yes, Britain does exist, too’; and the artfully unkempt gardens in my neighborhood have started to splash out in vibrant colors.  English gardens, even the small ones, are worthy of a blog of their own–the most key factor being that, in England, it is perfectly acceptable for heterosexual middle-aged men to plant dainty flowers. In fact, it is nearly mandatory. 

Swarthy Tony, my Spanish ex-pat neighbor, Internet Lothario, and proud adherent to anything he deems to be quintessentially English, told me gleefully as he transplanted a rather ungainly bush that this truly was the year his garden would be perfected–a project that had taken him three years.   With a fish and chip shop to run, a grandson he spends a lot of time with, and the many ladies he’s chatting up over the Interwebs, the fact that he can find time to garden as well gives some idea of the dedication and esteem garnered from a well tended garden.  And the key to an English garden is another nod to the great British sense of irony, in that the more cared for it is the wilder and unkempt it will appear.   Don’t let it fool you, though, they made it that way.

But it isn’t just the gardens that are blossoming–about this time of year many of the local pubs sprout flowers as well.   The mildness of spring and overwhelming joy of having light past 4:00p.m. means that pubs really come into their own in the spring.  Publicans decorate their somewhat austere brick buildings with a variety of pots, hanging plant boxes, and fauna which sometimes leaves you wondering if you’re walking into a bar or a garden centre.  However, you’ll know you’re in a pub because you’ll see the line of taps for Real Ale.

If you’re a fan of beer, Real Ale is one of the great treasures of the U.K.  It’s the beer our grandfathers who served in WWII warned us about–served cellar temperature, generally fairly flat as it’s naturally carbonated, and coming in a variety of strengths and colors, from bitters to Pales to porters to stouts,  each region and area represented by breweries ranging from huge and corporate, to brewers who work out of their houses.  They carry a variety of fun and catchy names–you can quaff a Hurricane, a Spitfire, a Golden Fox, or a (slightly unnerving) Bishop’s Finger.  And because some of them are brewed in such limited quantities, it’s a constant state of delight in finding one you really like, and disappointment when it’s no longer available because it’s run out.

Keeping everyone abreast of the Real Ale movement is a group called the Campaign for Real Ale (or CAMRA).  Whenever a group of Brits get together to form a social group or club, you can guarantee that they will A) take it very seriously, B) quickly become experts in whatever they’re doing, and C)be able to talk about it to absolute strangers for hours.  CAMRA is no exception, and they have painstakingly documented pubs across the country in a book entitled The Good Beer Guide, which is a must for anyone travelling to the U.K. hoping to get a flavor of the Real Ale scene (and, handily, it also gives you a heads up on where the good food is at).  CAMRA also sponsors festivals across the country, has a selection of books on pub walks and London pubs, campagins to save pubs in danger of going out of business, and is generally a fantastic resource for anyone interested in pubs or pub culture.  Some knowledge of Real Ale is also a great way to get a conversation going in pubs, as most Real Ale enthusiasts love to compare favorite ales, and are keen to win you over to the Real Ale side.

I’ve been lucky enough to have a well-respected Real Ale pub, the Trafford Arms, as my local, which was a great introduction, and the Fat Cat, a Norwich staple which serves beer from across the world (including Sierra Nevada from the States, great if you’re feeling homesick).  Also, Norwich hosts a Real Ale festival in October every year at local St. Andrew’s Hall, featuring over 200 types of beer from breweries around the country.  Even smaller towns have festivals–one of the most entertaining I’ve been to was the Sheringham Beer Festival, which took place on a train platform and was a delightful, if surreal, combination of bluegrass bands, tents, steam engine locomotives, and, of course, beer.

So with spring in the works, the sun out, and all this talk of beer, I may wander down to the local, sit outside in the sun, and see what’s on tap today.

Unfortunate News: Trip Cancelled

You’ll notice the trip countdown is now absent from the sidebar.

Well, my wife and I have decided to put our trip to London in March on hold.

There were many reasons behind our decision that I won’t really go into. I’m really gutted about it but it’s the right thing to do right now.

We’re planning on maybe going in November. But March is just too soon, despite all our planning. We’d like to wait until the economy improves a little better.

We will be going again as soon as we can, but for now we’re staying put and we’ll start saving for the next trip. It will also motivate me to work extra hard on this blog (and my many other web projects) to earn the money to go.

So, no London in the Springtime for me or walking through Shaftesbury, Dorset on a cool March morning.

We’ll be going soon enough, though.

London To Brighton in 3 1/2 Minutes and New Version to Glasgow

I came across this video a few years ago while exploring UKNova. It’s a time lapse journey from London, England to the seaside down of Brighton (a journey that really takes an hour or so). It was made quite some time ago, but it’s still an amazing video. I particularly like the prehistoric electronic music.

It’s amazing to see a long journey in such a short period of time.

The reason I decided to post this was the BBC recently featured a brand new video featuring a time lapse journey from London to Glasgow on the newly renovated West Coast Main Line.

I’m not able to embed the video. But you can see it here. It’s pretty cool.

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