Not long ago I saw a post by BBC on X, announcing readers that schools are closed in some part of United Kingdom, due to the extreme weather. There was a photo attached, in which you could see like 5cm snow, melted already at some places.
It wasn't a joke at all, it was quite serious and I bet the weather was causing serious problems, but it made me smile and made me think back what weather was like when I was a school kid.
I remember winter for us meant -25°C temperature at times and snow as high as our knees. For those of you who have never experienced this kind of temperature, it feels like the air is biting your skin, like many needles are punching your skin and when you try to breathe, your nostrils stick together. It's not the end of the world, but you need to adapt, as otherwise you can get into trouble.
Roads were cleaned occasionally to some extent, but were still covered by snow and after so many people walked on them, the top became icy and walking became an act of balance for adults and fun for children.
For us kids, it was a real winter paradise, because we had the chance to throw snowballs at each other on the road to school and back and during recess between classes. After we got home, we had an hour or two, or sometimes more, to go outside and play in the snow. This ended in us going home totally frozen, literally frozen. Our knitted gloves were covered by ice, our feet were frozen to the extent that I remember my mom put our feet in look warm water, to warm us up as hot water would have caused more damage.
Even with these conditions, schools were never closed. I asked my dad to be sure, but we have never had one day when schools were closed due to bad weather. Not once.
I remember when autumn began, our parents started to hunt for winter clothes, which meant boots, serious warm, winter boots, warm pants and warm clothes, as well as beanies, gloves and scarves.
After so many years, my mentality is still the same, but the weather is not. I still have proper winter coat for -25°C or even -30°C, if necessary, boots and the rest, bit god knows when was the last time I wore my proper winter coat. This morning was -10°C outside, which is normal temperature for winter and not something you have to worry about. However, I think this is the second or maybe the third time we get so low temperature and it doesn't last either. Maybe a day or two, but not more.
Snow? We're almost at the point where we have to ask "what's that?" This winter we had snow for 3 times I believe. The first time I went out in the morning, to take some photos quickly, because I it'll be melted in 5 hours and I was right. There was almost nothing left till moon. All I could do is gather some already wet snow for a snowball, to take a photo and that was all.
After that, we got some snow two times, but it was more like light sprinkle of snow, nothing more. Last time was three days ago and I couldn't even collect enough snow for a snowball.
Obviously no one knows what's going to happen in the future, but the good days are gone, that I am sure of. Those winter months, when snow was dominating for months are long gone. You can still enjoy snow, but only high up in the mountains.
These pansies are not winter flowers, because we don't have winter flowers here, yet they were doing fine outside still. They got covered by a thin layer of snow for a couple of hours, but I don't think it did much damage to them. The cold we have today on the other hand can be fatal to them.
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