173/365

Here we are stuck in traffic for over an hour this morning due to the miniscule amount of snow-ish substance which fell over night. Pathetic!

152/365

More snow last night = yet another snow day today!

146/365

Snow Day #2. Thanks for not knowing how to clear snow, England.

145/365

We're having the "worst storm in 50 years" in Surrey and for once the Met Office (the weather people) got this one right. Its been snowing non-stop since about 11pm last night and now at 4:42pm, its still coming down very heavily. No work today and I cant imagine that things will be drastically improved tomorrow. Hooray for snow days!!

131/365

As you can tell by this photo, Jolly England has much to learn when it comes to clearing roads after snowfall (especially after rain falls on the snow and turns it into thick sheets of ice). I imagine the side roads will be treacherously slippery for days to come.

126/365

It snowed lots more over night... Look how pretty the Rose and Thistle looks in the snow.

124/365

IT SNOWED TODAY!!

We're supposed to get "heavy snow" on Friday, but I had to laugh when I heard the news readers say to expect 5 centimeters - who measures snow in centimeters!? If you're only going to get few centimeters why bother measuring? :)

122/365

We've been having some pretty cold weather and the car was frosty this morning, so I asked David if he wanted me to turn it on to warm up and he said "no, just turn the kettle on".... Instead of deicer or the defroster, he poured the hot water on the windshield and back window!! Is that normal???

108/365

First frost of the season. Brrr!

53/365: Blame It On The Rain

Super rainy day today! The crap thing about umbrellas is that they do nothing for your hair really... I walked the 4 minutes to the bus stop today with my umbrella and the moisture in the air still completely ruined my hair. I spent the rest of the day observing people to see if they are using anything else (maybe a jacket with a hood instead) to keep their hair styled, but it appears that the trick is just to pull your hair back once its ruined. Guess that means I need to grow mine a bit more so it can be pulled back. Damn you Mother Nature -what kind of hairstyle did you have anyway!?

13/365: The High Street

This is Camberley High Street. Every town has what is refered to as a "high street". Sometimes it's a generic term for the main drag and sometimes is the offical name of the street, which is the case in Camberley.
As you can tell in the photo, its a bit of a rainy day, so I purchased this lovely umbrella, only to realize that I am not sure I really know HOW to use an umbrella. Is there a trick so it doesnt catch the wind and blow your arm off or turn inside out??

6/365: The Joy of Fountains

I have perhaps mentioned to most of you before (because I think its the strangest thing), something very odd happens when the sun shines and/or it is not raining: Brits run outside and find something, anything to do in case the sun never shines again. I took this picture in a square/park in Manchester at about 11am when it was partly cloud and the temperature (I checked on my phone) was 73 degrees.
Now, I have seen many a child run around in public fountains when its about 90 degrees and the sun is making it uncomfortable to be outside, but never on a day like this.

The children were either dressed in swimsuits or stripped down to their underwear, while some of their caretakers didn't even bother....

What I learned today: Apparently most or all of British credit cards have a little chip in them and the terminals which Americans usually slide the card through is set up to have the card inserted and the chip read. I was not surprised when I recieved a deep sigh from a cashier when I asked her to take my regular non-chipped card.

3/365: Off To The Seaside

We took an impromptu trip to Portsmouth today and had lunch and a lie on the beach at Southsea. It was one of those days where the weather makes all Brits comment approximately every hour how nice of a day it is, and then when its still "nice" come evening, they comment on what a lovely evening it is. I've yet to see this terrible weather for which England is known, but I hope its coming!

What I learned today (just for Kari): It's actually fairly comfortable to lay on pebbles.