onlyemma's Diaryland Diary
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Okay, you made a snowman. You're not at work.
Happy new year!
As I hope you did too, I made the most of the mysterious gap between Christmas and new year in which chocolate, trifle and cake doesn�t contain any fat or calories. That has to be the best week of the whole year; nothing helps a sugary tea go down like a Cadbury�s Caramel, a packet of chocolate buttons and a Crunchie.
However, as all good things must come to an end, I�m now back in dreary London. It�s very snowy here, much like the rest of the country, and I�m really enjoying how it�s made most of the British population ever-so slightly mad. I suddenly don�t feel quite so alone.
To my great delight, today it was snowy enough for the BBC to put on special programming to tell us all again that it�s still snowing. I had to cover reception at work so kept the news on in there all day, and thoroughly enjoyed seeing a dozen or so red-nosed reporters trust up in big coats, interviewing concerned local business owners all around the country and pointing down streets.
Yesterday was fun at work too, as everyone was panicking that we weren�t going to be able to make it in today because the Big Freeze was going to bring London to a stand-still overnight. The mild hysteria was brilliant, and it�s not often you get such drama in Colindale that isn�t a shooting or mugging. I also realised later in the day that my main concern turned out to be a common fear in the office, which was of getting snowed in but in the wrong place - that place naturally, being work. It led to people running out of the building at six o�clock, or just before, in case the Heaven�s opened and an arctic wave of snow enveloped our street, rendering us all stranded and with nothing left to live for but to go back in and make some ads.
This morning was the ultimate disappointment though. I�d gone to bed later than usual, assuming as we all did, that I could snooze all I wanted today as I�d be legitimately snowed in - cup of tea in hand. Therefore, instead of sleeping, last night I spent an unusually long time just standing at my bedroom window with Sophie, every now and then confirming that the snow flakes were either getting bigger or smaller and falling faster or slower - the pair of us voicing and nodding that yes, we were both making the same remarkable observations. So when I woke up this morning, dazed but exhilarated, I was horrified to see that only about ten measly centimetres of snow had fallen outside my window and I wasn�t even snowed in a little bit. It was a complete and utter let-down.
Saying that, we did get to leave at three o�clock this afternoon which softened the blow a bit, and I came back to find Sophie still in her pyjamas, watching a politically incorrect film about a rich man and a tramp.
Though after that ordeal, tonight has been very average. We watched an episode of House which made me worry I had a disease, and then me and Emily watched Michael Palin climbing the Himalayas, which is why I�m in my bedroom, as all that effort has made me feel very tired. I hope I can come home early tomorrow too.
The snow seems to have stopped now though, which is a bit alarming as the chances of getting snowed in seem to be getting frighteningly slimmer by the hour. If I am in fact unable to venture into work tomorrow however, I have made one vow in this rare situation - and that vow is to not for the life of me (not even with friendly cajoling) build a snowman and then post thousands of photos of it on my Facebook. Every time it snows, my Facebook gets bombarded with albums of skinny snowmen, collapsed snowmen, snowmen with Lucozade bottles for noses and the odd giant snow penis, and on these occasions I always think to myself, �I will never, ever, ever choose to go through those photos�. There is only one circumstance in which I will even consider having a look at a photo of a snowman, and one circumstance only, and that is if it�s sitting on a bench.
Now that, my friends, will always be magical.
(thanks, Kate.)
9:29 p.m. - 2010-01-06
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