The storms have gone, but the travel chaos hasn’t left yet. Unfortunately, the buses aren’t running – and neither are many trains. The kids at one of the neighboring apartment complexes have a sense of humor – and built a snowman at the bus stop. Although – it’s possible that it’s not a snowman – but someone stranded, waiting on the bus for quite a while.
Last nights snow has shut nearly everything down in Dublin, amounting to 6-8 inches with drifting in places. Hardly anyone is out, except myself and the dog, and he is one happy fella running about in the snow. He hasn’t stopped grinning since we went outside.
There’s more due in the next few hours – you can see it on the far edges of the pictures – but for now, it’s bright, clear, pristine, and beautiful. Yes, it’s the morning after – and despite all the “don’t drive” warnings, the “travel chaos” alerts, the “we’re running out of water so we have to shut it off (more on that later)” worries – I can’t help but smile.
Why? Because winter is my favorite time of year – not because of Christmas, or New Years – because somehow, when it Snows, it’s easy to Believe in Magic.
It finally started snowing. It’s the 21st of December, and only 6 days late – we’re finally seeing the start of the snowstorm of the epoch.
The problem is that it’s come on top of rain, so that means ice with snow on top. The other interesting point is that it’s sticky wet snow alternated by powder snow showers and lots of wind. It’s causing havoc (as you can see below) with driving (it’s almost horizontally snowing) – for all those last minute Christmas holiday shoppers headed up the M50 to the mall.
The amusing part of this is that not only is it 6 days late, half the office went home upon seeing the first few flakes. Oh, and they were a bit irritated with me, because I started singing all the “snow” related Christmas carols that I could possibly think of. The greatest hits included “Let it Snow”, “White Christmas”, “Frosty the Snowman”, and on my way out the door, a rousing rendition of “Walking in a Winterland”. I was called evil, told it was completely my fault (notice the wiggling fingers and the evil grin on my face as they said that and I laughed) and strange enough, I was the only one HAPPY about the snow. Well, except for my dog – who is always overjoyed when it Snows (even if it is 6 days later than the weatherman predicted).
*** UPDATE: 12/21/2010 9:15 pm ***
We’re up to about 5 inches of snow, and it’s coming down so hard you can hardly keep your eyes open. It’s impressive – as the last time I saw it snow this hard was when I was in Utah. I went out with the dog – and took a few snaps – the building below – is about 500 yards from where I’m standing – and you could barely see it through the snow.
Oh – and after only 20 minutes, I was covered enough to where I resembled a yeti. This is about 10 minutes out with the pup.
