Happy Christmas!
Tag: snow
The horror story that never was. Not for us, anyway.
Everyone worried about our journey back to the UK. WE worried about our journey back to the UK. The news in France, England and throughout Europe was of snow, delay, disruption. TV images showed exhausted families sleeping on luggage conveyor belts at airports, crammed train stations, lines of immobile traffic on motorways. And we were planning to drive back to England, the best part of 1000 miles away from Laroque. Friends begged us to change our plans, or at least buy snow tyres.
But we decided the information on the internet was at variance with that provided on TV and radio bulletins, and far more positive. Our planned route, as far as http://www.meteo services were concerned, was pretty much fine, apart from some snow as we neared Pas de Calais.
And so it proved.
It did snow, mainly near Rouen. And I wouldn’t have wanted to be a lorry driver. Gendarmes on roundabouts rounded them up from Dreux onwards and sent them on different routes. Just after Rouen, they closed the fast lane of the motorway, and forced all the truckers to park up there, mile after mile of lorries from France, Spain, Luxembourg, Portugal, the UK…. And there they all sat in their cabs, unfed, unwatered, puffing away at endless cigarettes, or occasionally jumping down to take a stroll along the not-so-fast-lane. I hope they’re not still there. For us, although driving was tricky for an hour or two, it was a chance to enjoy Winter Wonderland views across hills and forests, only animal tracks disturbing the perfect white landscape
The motorway snow petered out, and we picked up speed, and got to Calais just in time. But the ferry was late. It had become a refuge for those unable to fly, unable to travel Eurostar, but desperate to cross the Channel any way they could. Hard to believe we’d had it so easy. On the other side of the Channel, travelling through to London, we listened to Radio 4. The BBC was full of sad stories of those unable to get home to their families for Christmas. Politicians held forth about how Britain’s handling of the situation was ‘the laughing stock of Europe’. We don’t think so. Things were hardly better in France, to our certain knowledge, and Belgium and Germany weren’t having a good time either. Perhaps it’s quite simply that we humans aren’t quite so in charge as we like to think. Nature has her ways of humbling us after all, from time to time.
…..now Snow’s the Big Story
Everyone in Europe, it seems, has been battling with snow this week. Everyone that is, except us and anyone within easy driving distance of our part of the country.
Night after night the French news bulletins have been full of tales of woe, endurance, hardship, slipping and sliding and Dunkirk Spirit in Lyon, Orléans, Brittany, and Strasbourg. Before passing on to the rest of the news, we’d then have a shot or two of traffic jams on a motorway outside Newcastle, or a firmly shut-for-business Gatwick Airport. Neighbours and friends gleefully filled us in on how dire they’d heard things were in the UK.
Finally, yesterday morning, the snow arrived here too. Frankly, we knew we weren’t going to get the news crews down here looking for a story. It hardly settled, and then it began to disappear. Still, I found excuses in the afternoon not to get on, but to sit next to the woodburner and do some jobs on the computer. I got distracted. Somehow, although it’s not at all my newspaper of choice, I started to look at the readers’ photos on the Telegraph website. They’re terrific. Gorgeous snowscapes from all over Britain; funnies, such as the rabbit tentatively sniffing at a snowman; curiosities such as the milk bottles out on the step whose contents had expanded to make tall chimneys of frozen milk extrude from the top. Sorry – my links won’t lead you to the exact photos, because the Telegraph’s organized them into galleries. But have a look anyway. You too may spend quite a while browsing through for your favourite.
And now here are our snow photos, taken on the way to Pamiers, and home from Foix. We were meant to be Christmas shopping. Well, that didn’t last. A cup of decadently rich smooth hot chocolate at a chocolatier in Pamiers, and we were off. The pretty way home, via Foix, seemed a much better idea. My photos will impress nobody who’s been battling with the real stuff this last week. But we like them anyway
Asparagus Three, the Blogspot
Back in the UK, I’ve noticed that in the media, topics, like buses, come in threes. For instance, I’d flick through an article in the second section of the Guardian: maybe about female circumcision, education-other-than-at-school, or some other equally right-on Guardian topic. Two or three days later, listening to say Women’s Hour on Radio 4, they’d be discussing exactly the same subject, with exactly the same slant. Then the following week, maybe on Channel 4, it would appear yet again.
And so it has been in the world of blogging. On April 24th, Kalba’s blog dropped into my in-box. I complained immediately. It was about asparagus, and I could have written it myself. Not all of it. I’ve never run a restaurant, and I’ve never lived in Norfolk. But like her, I do like green asparagus, the thinner the better: I don’t like the blanched, thick white spears favoured by the French and throughout most of mainland Europe.
Then on the 30th April, Bloggerboy, the writer of my other favourite blog, Welcome Visitor, pitched in with an account of the German love of asparagus. He even convinced me to have another go with the white stuff.
So now it’s my turn to write an asparagus blog. In Mirepoix market yesterday morning there were quite a few asparagus stalls, and I picked the one where I could buy thin and thick green spears, and white too. ‘I’m not too keen on the white spears’, I confided to the stall holder, ‘but I’m sure I must be wrong when you all seem to like them so. How do you like to cook them?’. If I’d expected to have my hand wrung in gratitude at my acknowledgement of his expertise: if I’d expected him to call over his wife to share her culinary tips, I would have been disappointed. What I got was a Gallic shrug. He was mystified by the stupidity of my question. ‘Well, you could use them in tarts, or omelettes. Whatever you like really’. I realised our conversation was at an end.
Luckily, there are recipe books, and there are other blogs. I’ve just tried a suggestion from another blog I enjoy, ‘Chocolate and Zucchini’, which is available in English and French. Asparagus and strawberry tart. A very odd idea indeed, but it works. In fact it was memorably good.
This is what we ate yesterday evening, from Denis Cotter’s wonderful vegetarian book, ‘Paradiso seasons’.
Gratin of Asparagus, Roasted Tomatoes and Gabriel Cheese with Chive and Mustard Cream.
Ingredients – for 2
4 -5 large tomatoes
Salt and pepper, to season
Drizzle of olive oil.
40g. fine breadcrumbs
40 g. Gabriel cheese, finely grated. I can’t get this, unsurprisingly, and maybe you can’t either. Settle for a hard, densely textured cheese.
1 sprig thyme
I tablespoon butter, melted
30 ml. vegetable stock
30 ml. white wine
150 ml. cream
Small bunch of chives, chopped
½ tsp. hot mustard
16 asparagus spears
Heat oven to 190 degrees. Cut tomatoes into 3-4 thick slices each. Place on oven trays lined with baking parchment, season and drizzle with olive oil. Roast until lightly browned and semi-dried – you may need to turn them once.
Mix the breadcrumbs with the thyme, the butter, and most of the cheese. Season.
Boil the stock and the wine until reduced by half. Add the cream and mustard, bring it back to the boil and simmer for 2 – 3 minutes until pouring consistency.
During this time, briefly cook the asparagus.
Heat a grill. On each plate, place 6 slices of tomato, lined up 3 x 2, and cover with 5 asparagus spears. Place a single line of tomatoes on top, then 3 more asparagus spears on top. Spoon a little mustard cream over the top, then finish with a generous sprinkling of the crumble. Cook under a hot grill for 2 – 3 minutes until the cream is bubbling, and the top is crisp and brown. Put remaining cream back on the stove, whisk in the rest of the cheese and chives, and pour round the finished gratins.
Alternatively (and this is more my style), arrange the ingredients in an oven dish instead of individual plates, and bake for 10 minutes until the cream is bubbling and the top is crisped and brown.
This too is a really tasty simple dish, well worth adding to the regular asparagus repertoire.
Um, have you noticed, I still haven’t got round to thinking about those wretched white spears?
The Big Snow: Chapter 3
Extraordinary.
Sunday, March 7th. Malcolm and I go for a walk in the Aude, near Limoux. The day is full of the promise of spring, bright and sunny. The almond blossom is out. We spot baby lizards darting along stone walls, and enjoy watching more lizards sunning themselves on the rocky ledge where we have our midday picnic.
Monday, March 8th. We wake up to snow. And more snow. It was snowing as we got up, and it continues to snow, hour after hour. We watch the flowerpots in the yard as their hats of snow become taller and taller. By mid-afternoon, they’re 24 cm. high, and by 7 o’clock, as it begins to get dark, they’re about 28 cm. high. Up on the roof, the icicles become stouter and as long as the snow is deep. The trees stand stiff and silent under their heavy bonnets of snow. The snow continues to fall as we close the shutters at nightfall. TV news reminds us that we’ve has it easy – look at the deep drifts, and hundreds of stranded lorries backed up in the Pyrénées Orientales!
Today, Tuesday March 9th – no more snow falling- but it’s not ready to melt either. The wind snatches the snow from the trees, and when we leave the house, slaps our faces with flurries of flakes whipped from the rooftops. The birds are constantly busy at our ‘Resto du Coeur’, and we replenish their feeders several times. Gym? Cancelled. Choir? Cancelled
As I still haven’t got my camera, the snowy photos on this blog come to you courtesy of my friend Marianne, who’s been busy with her camera as she and Réglisse, her dog, slip and skate round the chilly streets of le Peyrat, just down the road from Laroque. Thanks, Marianne!
Suddenly, earlier today, I remembered this ditty the children and I used to chant when they were small:
Whether the weather be cold,
Or whether the weather be hot
We’ll weather the weather
Whatever the weather
Whether we like it or not
The Big Snow: History
If you turn on the radio these days, or look at the inside pages of the daily paper, you’re likely to find reminiscences of the big freezes of last century, 1947, 1960, 1963 and 1979.
Well, I don’t remember 1947. My mother had bitter memories of it, but I was rocking gently in a warm bath of amniotioc fluid, and didn’t have to worry about the cold.
In 1960, I was at girls’ grammar school, and becoming, with my class mates, a sulky teenager. My main memory is of long frozen January lunch hours in the school playground (unthinkable that we’d be allowed to remain inside in the warm). Considering ourselves too old to have fun chasing each other with snowballs, we stood around in morose groups, comparing our newly fashionable long johns with each other (they were long legged bloomers really, in garish colours. But they helped a bit).
By 1963, an even starker winter, we were sitting out mock O Levels. The school heating system broke down, and we sat several exams in our winter coats, and sometimes even our velour hats. We had to write with our woolly gloves on. No ‘manifs’, no walk outs, and no line of indignant parents outside the headmistress’ office complaining about Health and Safety. The stroppiest of us (and I wasn’t stroppy in those days) just got on with it as just one more thing to be endured in those gloomy January days. We must all have been raving bonkers.
Things were very different by 1979. Elinor was born in late ’78, and Thomas was just under 2 years old. We lived perched towards the top of one of Sheffield’s (allegedly) 7 hills (‘Same as Rome, see?’), and getting up and down that steep slope of ours with a pram was unthinkable. It WAS a steep slope. Occasionally, a hired coach would try to take a short cut down our road. It would find itself marooned at the bottom, the driver’s cab already on the level main road, while the back of the bus remained suspended on the 45 degree tarmac behind, to the unbridled delight of all of us who lived in the street: we’d all turn out to watch the fun.
So we stayed at home as the snow fell, and continued to fall. For 6 weeks. No shopping, no walks in the park or toddler groups or visits to friends (apart from the family next door, in exactly the same position as us). For someone like me, always looking for busy things to fill the day, it should have been utterly unthinkable. But it wasn’t. My memory of that time is of spending hour after hour, the three of us, cosily curled up on the sofa while I breastfed Elinor, reading one story after another to Thomas. Children’s picture books were just taking off in those days, and we had our supply of Picture Puffins… Farmer Fisher, Wonky Donkey, Bread & Jam for Frances, Maurice Sendak…. Whenever I remember that long and rather lazy winter, it’s always with simple pleasure.
This winter is a little more complicated. We’d like to be in France, but since we can’t be, we’d like to be seeing our friends. We can’t do that either. Either we can’t get up our hill, or they can’t get down theirs. Or their children’s school is closed. Or something. So instead we worry about feeding the birds: They’re pretty hungry, but it wouldn’t do to have them depend on a supply of food which may disappear at any moment. We compromise, and put scraps, but only scraps, scattering them in different places. And then we worry about weather forecasts. If it’s not snowing here, it is in the south of England. How’s northern France doing? And further south? It depends which forecast you listen to or read. What to do……? Watch this space
The Big Snow
‘Christmas shopping in the snow. A white Christmas. A whiter new year. Christmas in the Ariège? No, apparently not. It was mild and sunny there. Instead, this was Christmas and New Year UK style. The days in England were very odd for us. We’d wake up to glittering, powdery snow on the streets, and hungry birds scavenging for crumbs. We’d fail to drive the car up the road, because we live at the bottom of a hill, and the poor thing couldn’t get a grip: 4x4s, usually so derided in our urban setting, had the last laugh, because only they could go anywhere much.
Visits to friends were cancelled. Their visits to us were abandoned. All because of the snow. It wasn’t so very deep, admittedly, but in urban and suburban England, we’re just not geared up to dealing with it. No snow chains on the cars, not enough grit, not enough salt. And it’s not so surprising we were unprepared. Until last year’s freak snowstorms, many English children had only seen snow on skiing holidays or Christmas cards, so why would local authorities plan for anything worse than the occasional sleet shower?
So here are some pictures of life in cold and snowy Harrogate. Emily and I even made a mini snowman. He’s mini because making him was like trying to model something in very cold granulated sugar. The snow wouldn’t stick together. We had fun trying though, and though he was very small, he was a little monster’ 
All that was written before The Big Snow. The Big Snow suddenly descended here sometime after 4.00 a.m. on Tuesday 4th January, the day we were due to set off back for France. The Big Snow decided otherwise. Harrogate; like much of Northern England, was closed for business. No buses, no schools, few people at work …. but lots of snowmen suddenly populating the streets and gardens –even an authentic looking igloo in the next street along. It was fun at first, and lovely to look at. Then reality began to bite. Slogging to the distant shops through 8’’ of snow, with streets and roads ungritted isn’t much fun. Not everybody can work from home, and too many of those who couldn’t get to work, either had their wages docked, or had to take a day from their annual leave allowance. There’s still a bit of a holiday atmosphere, but the novelty’s worn off, especially as the Big Snow has become the Big Freeze and is going to continue, it seems.
When will we be able to leave for France? Who knows. The South has taken over from the north as Snow Capital of the UK, and we’ve been very firmly advised against travelling (anyway, we still can’t drive the car up our hill). From what we can see, northern France is a winter wonderland as well – with added fog.
I’d like to add more photos – I will later. But I’m working with a dongle, and if you’re geek enough to know what I’m talking about, you’ll know it’s not ideal
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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