Proper Winter at last

 

At long last it's proper winter. Much of the country is covered in snow. One of my colleagues lives in Aberdeen and has been sharing photos of cars pretty much covered in snow and people walking around with snow up to their knees.

Where I live we had a fine dusting of snow - it didn't even cover the grass properly. That was on Monday. On Tuesday morning it was son's first day back at school/college after the winter break. He and his friends were all of a flurry on WhatsApp, excited about the chances of a snow day. He asked me to check the school website for information. I duly did this, but pointed out to him that a snow day was actually unlikely.... because we didn't have any snow.

That said he goes to school about 4 miles away on the other side of the South Downs and this can mean a big difference in weather because those of us on our side of the Downs have a microclimate. It was entirely possible that the school was swathed in snow. Also in much the same way as son takes a minibus into school there are minibusses from the school travelling far and wide to pick up the students. One of son's friends has a 1 hour journey into school on the minibus.

On the subject of son he was set homework for the holidays (I think that's unfair over Christmas break). One of the things he had to do was to read 'The Pianist', which supported his history A level. I didn't know about this until around 5 days before the holiday ended, when he requested that the book was purchased. I did query it when that happened because son never actually reads. He started Lord of the Rings and 1.5 years later he was still reading it. It's not that he's not great at reading, he just has no interest in it.

I was therefore supremely proud that he knuckled down and actually managed to finish the book before going back to school. He said it was a great story, but terribly sad - so perhaps I'll not read it.

I used to be massively into reading, churning my way through a book a week, but I seem to have lost this desire over the years. Initially it was because I had son and I was either massively busy or too tired to use my eyes, then I just kinda got out of the habit.