Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow …

“Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow” …

Lyrics of course to that famous Christmas song, sung by Frank Sinatra.

Or was it Dean Martin? …

Actually, on further research, it was penned by lyricist Sammy Cahn and composer Jule Styne in 1945, and sung by many since, including the afore-mentioned greats.

It’s a song that usually springs to mind, and occasionally also absent-mindedly sung outloud (I use the word ’sung’ fairly liberally, others may differ in how they define the momentary outburst), whenever we get a covering of the white stuff here in England – and this week we’ve been getting our first dose of the season, along with some penetrating cold.

The problem with the weather in England is that you never quite know what you’re going to get, and it changes constantly.

So there’s no certainty that there will be snow in any particular winter … and for that reason, it’s not worth the investment that would be required in order for us to cope with it adequately.

Not just on a government level, but also on a personal level.

In fact, whenever it does snow, I secretly hope it will continue getting deeper and stay with us for weeks … simply because I can then justify getting kitted out properly, with snow chains for the car and clothing that kits me out like an Arctic explorer for food gathering expeditions (to the local shops, hopefully still well-stocked, rather than fishing through the ice, but hey, you can dream …) when the car can cope no more.

Of course, they’ll be the sledge with a well-trained pack of huskies to get the kids to school, not to mention the snow-mobile just for the fun of it.

Unfortunately, little excuse for this type of thing in England … unless you want to join the legion of eccentrics who seem to feel at home here, and live in a slightly-displaced reality … and my heart sometimes leans towards living in the Alaskan wilderness, with proper snow and ice expected and delivered at a similar time each year, where the proper kit is essential for survival, and you even get a nice grizzly bear or two thrown in for company.

(Side point … our neighbour in the last place we lived in, less than a year ago, lived permanently in the 1960s … from his car outside, still just about running, to his gramophone, and in fact nearly everything he owned, refusing to have anything to do with anything post-1960s, despite the reality of the 21st century that surrounded him outside his own imagined reality. And he was only in his 40s, never actually having lived in the era himself. This type of person fits right in in England … we breed them!)

Admittedly, I am a bit of a kit freak … more than that, I like coping in the type of crisis that major extended snowfall would bring (as long as it wasn’t too much of a crisis, we still had food on the table, adequate heating, a lack of any real danger, and I could just kind of, well, play, while busy justifying it as something else).

Not sure where it comes from … probably from reading books like Where Eagles Dare and watching films like Escape from Colditz as a kid, and vainly imagining myself as more than capable of the same heroic exploits.

As long as I had the right kit of course.

Oh, and as long as I’d had the same rigorous training …

And as long as the fights were really no more serious than the play ones I have with my 8 year old son, and it all ended relatively free of bullets, blood and broken bones.

But still …

In fact, what kills the illusion nowadays is my wife killing herself laughing at the thought of my even attempting such exploits.

Little does she know, ha ha! Then again, she’s probably right … hmphhh.

In reality (that is, the unimagined one outside my head), with the odd bit of snow and ice we get during winter, car journeys consist of grappling with the ice scraper along with everyone else, skidding along in the car, snow-chain-free, trying not to bash into the local bus, followed at destination by falling flat on my face when my un-cramponed boots hit a slightly skiddy patch.

Ice Station Zebra it is not.