Hysteria!

21/12/10

Woke up to the radio telling me about temperatures plummeting in Belfast. I also heard this last night, several times. I am due to drive north soon – and find myself in the grip of national hysteria.

There has been nothing like this frantic confusion and teeth gnashing since the death of Diana and news of the last serial killer – the new agent of terror and despair is the weather!

I couldn’t watch the news last night as I knew what it would be; people trapped in their cars over night or surviving in hastily built igloos with their dogs, lorries jack-knifed, a humanitarian catastrophe at Heathrow airport, forlorn people trying to get onto a Eurostar train, and reporters in thick jackets standing outside, telling us, “It’s terribly cold here!” Also more references to the plummeting temperatures in Belfast.

Oh Dear. Just like last year when I was worried sick before I set out.

I got home safely then as there was a whole area of the west Midlands that was completely untroubled by snow – and I do hope to get home again this week, in my new VW Fox, on its first big outing, without needing a shovel or space blanket.