Snow Joke

We have been snowed in for five days now. There is a general covering of six inches of snow which has drifted in places to waist height. The lane below the house is impassable due to snow drifts. We have not been out of the house since Tuesday, other than to walk the dog during lulls between the blizzards. The snow on local roads has been compacted by tractors, the only vehicle safe to use hereabouts, even making walking extremely slippery. The forecast is for the thaw to set in tomorrow, but given how much snow is lying it looks like we may not be able to get out of the house by car until Tuesday at the earliest.

At first our confinement seemed rather exciting. We looked out at the snow falling and checked how deep it was. We cancelled outside commitments, turned up the heating and focused on things we had been putting off. I edited my poetry and T wrote her journal. Our fridge was full as T had taken heed of the warnings about the Siberian storm and had stocked up well (our nearest shop is a mile and half away on ungritted roads). The oil tank was filled too, as it had run down two weeks earlier and had been replenished. We were in our very own snowy retreat away from the world.

On the first day an inch or so of snow fell. Then, during the night, another six inches fell. This was whipped up by an icy easterly gale and drifted heavily. After this some worries began to set in. First we feared for Rex, who sleeps in a kennel in the garden. But the next morning he was frolicking in the snow. The kennel is filled with straw and in a sheltered place. Rex has long, thick fur and is very hardy. We gave him extra food and warm milk. He was delighted. Second we worried about the power going off, our cosy retreat would become Arctic pretty quickly without electricity to run the oil-fired central heating. Perhaps the phone and internet might also become cut off and then we would truly be on retreat from the world. And fresh snow has arrived every day.

We read reports of the great snowstorm of 1947, when the snow was up to roof level in many places. Some Irish villages were cut off for the best part of a month and the government asked the RAF to come in and drop food parcels. We also noted the great disparity in media reporting. The English and Southern Irish media gave due weight to the seriousness of the red-warning snowstorm. Reporting teams were sent out to cover the blizzards, road blockages and the excellent work of the emergency services to keep hospitals and other essential services going. There were reports of doctors walking in to hospital for hours in order to do urgent cancer surgery and mountain rescue teams delivering essential drugs to people cut off in rural homes.

And what did the NI broadcast media report? How much people were enjoying a snow day off with video footage of kids tobogganing on an inch of snow at Stormont. The tone of their snow reportage was trivial and light-hearted throughout. Why we wondered? Perhaps because the Belfast-based editors didn’t look beyond their own noses and only responded to the light snowfall they had at their suburban homes?  Perhaps because the heavy snowfalls mainly affected South Down and Armagh and these places were rural and their predicament was remote and did not merit inclusion? Perhaps because the film crews couldn’t be arsed to go there because they would have to experience discomfort in order to get these stories and there were much easier ones to be had close at hand?  Whatever the reason, the local broadcast media coverage seemed rather lazy and inept. And as you can see from this semi-rant, like in the Scandinavian winter, perhaps paranoia is beginning to seep in.