Soulla in the Snow

Waiting for the Snow..

The BBC has been predicting heavy snow for most of this week since last Wednesday. Londoners have been checking the weather forecast a minimum of twice a day (I have been checking it every hour). Then, yesterday evening the warnings about snow started coming in. BBC was warning us, work send us an email asking us to "make every effort to come into work but only if it is safe" and I saw at least three facebook statuses of people announcing they were waiting for the snow. We all got off work crossing our fingers and hoping that we might be snowed in today!

At last the snow came last night

Then at 10 o' clock yesterday evening the snow started at last heavy big snowflakes covered my neighbourhood in no time! I was jumping up and down like a child. M even saw the fox crossing the road and leaving its footsteps behind which I then stared at for at least five minutes.

The dream of being snowed in was drawing closer! We put the heating on and added an extra blanket to our bed to prepare for the heavy winter. We did all this being tremendously excited about the snow. I find snow magical. Not having snow more than a dozen time (seeing as I am from Cyprus - the island of 360 days of sun a year) I just become mesmerised by it..I fall in love with it every time..

To go back to the being snowed in part though, we woke up to white surroundings and switched on the radio wishing for the good news: has London been brought to a halt?

Don't stop me now..

You see last January, for the first time of my eight years in London, for one day and one day only, Londoners did not go to work as the heaviest snow in twenty years covered London.

Do not get me wrong other exciting things did happen which stopped us working for maybe ..hmm....half an hour? A whale was trapped in the London Thames (I was working in Canary Wharf at the time and we kept looking out of the window to seethe whale), England won something or other (I did not care much it is obvious) and I was here during the hottest summer of London when shops and offices were ordered to stop their air conditioning because they were causing power cuts (really!?).

But, none of these ever managed to stop Londoners from going to work! Not even the London bombs did stop Londoners from going to work. That is how determined people are in this city to work! Personally it scares me but what can you say? This is the culture and as we say in Greek once you have joined the dance you have to dance to it.

So anyway..that is why I fell in love with snow day last year. People did not go to work, kids did not go to school..instead they came out on the street and threw snow at each other..it was great! For the first time in London I felt like I had real neighbours. Watching parents play with their kids in the street made me feel so happy for some crazy reason..

It did not happen this year..

So this year each and every Londoner (and especially me) yearned for a repeat...Unfortunately, the tube and buses worked just fine and we all came in and even did our work..but even the anticipation of the snow and the magic and the not leaving the house for a day has put a smile on people's faces and for me that's more than enough! In any case, the snow hasn't stopped yet!

Tomorrow may turn out to be a snowed-in day after all!

Soulla wishes you a Happy New Year

Soulla in 2009..

The last year has not been the easiest. Nothing especially bad has happened to me for which I thank God! But I think I might have had to grow up and look at things from a more mature perspective.

Leaving the student behind..

I think that since I left university I have been behaving as a big kid! Living as a student who has just left university but is still not a proper adult. I confess that six year later other than in relation to my job I do not have many responsibilities. I and my friends have mostly avoided those..

Real Life?

But this year things were different. The credit crunch caught up with us..not that it had any economic implications for me or even anyone I know but it made us reconsider things. Stop taking things for granted. I find myself and generally people of my generation very much protected from "bad things". Unlike many of our parents we have never wanted for anything. Someone always had our backs. And suddenly, we had to stop in our tracks and think, understand even that not everything is up for grabs. Sometimes you actually had to fight to get things which for so many years you believed you were entitled to..

Entitlement?

And London is definitely a place where people think they are entitled to things. I work hard or I am smart and educated and therefore I am entitled to a good job, good money. I am a nice person and therefore I am entitled to a happy, good life..Is that right though? In the big scheme of things why are you entitled to a good job, good money? Because your parents could afford your education? Because your parents cared to educate you, had the time to look after you and make you into a nice person? In any event are you 100% sure you really are a nice person?

Maybe we are not entitled to as much as we think are and therefore, in my head I have understood how grateful I should be that I actually do have a good job, I have found the man I love (and oh my god he loves me back), my family and friends are all happy and mostly healthy..I know now that I am happy even if sometimes I actually forget I am..

Soulla in 2010..

I have found that pulling the carpet under my feet has made me understand how much I liked standing on that carpet and therefore whatever the case may be I really think that 2010 will definitely be a good year. A year for me to enjoy all the difficult realisations I had to make in 2009!

Καλή χρονιά!!