Icy Hill

On Monday morning it was back to work after the Christmas break. On the way the thermometer in the car registered the outside temperature at -6 degrees C. I don't think I have ever seen it so low. By the time I arrived at school the temperature had risen to -5! Inside the building you might have expected the temperature to be a lot higher, and in fairness it probably was, but did it feel it? No. As per usual after the Christmas break, there was a problem with the heating, something hadn't come on and the place was FREEZING. To make matters worse what little heat that was getting to my lab was switched off at 11.00 as the air handling unit in the ceiling blew a gasket and was shooting steam into the atmosphere. One of the joys of teaching in a science lab is that you can use Bunsen burners to supplement what little heat the main heating system is producing! However, despite this I wore my coat all day as did lots of others, staff that is, the pupils don't do coats and wear only their blazers to school, whatever the weather, and then moan that they are cold. Maybe they should follow the example of Margaret Sherry's Snowman and wrap up warm.


Little did I know when I started my latest Just Nan project, 'Icy Hill' that evening how appropriate it would be!

On Tuesday morning I awoke to snow, about 1.5" and it was still falling. This would not have been too bad if the roads had been treated, and I'm not sure they had been. So I set off to school. At one stage I nearly turned back, the state of the roads and the fact that the snow had started to fall really heavily made driving very difficult. My journey took 15 minutes longer than normal, some members of staff took over two hours to do a 45 minute journey! But guess what? At school, 19 miles away from where I live, there was next to no snow at all! This situation was to change during the morning and at lunchtime the decision was taken to close the school over an hour early at 2.30. Later that evening I got a phone call saying that school would be closed on Wednesday and yesterday teatime I got another one to say that school would be closed today (Thursday) too! So with two unexpected days off I have managed to do more on 'Icy Hill' than I would have hoped.

Here it is, another mobile phone photo I'm afraid.


Now I know that if you are reading this in a country where thick snow is the norm you will wonder what all the fuss is about. The last time I was sent home from school because of snow was 15 years ago, and that was for half a day. The pupils always complain that it never snows where they live, and being on the west coast of Britain it rarely does, so this is the first 'real' snow fall the majority of them have seen in their lives. However, I think they will be very lucky indeed to get another day off tomorrow.

Added at 18.30 well I take it all back, we are closed tomorrow!