London snow – November 2010

London was absolutely miserable the whole of last week! At least it didn’t snow over the weekend. As I type this it is -3 degrees Celsius in London. The whole of last week snowed and it was apparently the worst November in at least 60 years, and the past tense of ‘snow’ is not ‘snew’.

I have been in this country for 4 years now and this November has been absolutely brutal! I remember going on site visits to open lands in Hounslow, London last November wearing just a shirt and a jumper. I was fully covered the last few days when I used to go out. I am generally resistant to the cold in London having spent most of my time in Newcastle which is arguably the coldest part in England, however I found London very cold this winter – God protect the poor buggers in Newcastle!

Here are a few pictures I took when my hands were so cold that they were burning! Yes, a sensation felt only by those who have lived in extreme winters. By ‘extreme’ I mean cold European winters, not the ones at the poles. Poles meaning, north and south – just in case.

Not the best photographs, but I like to use my blog as a sort of palimpsest where I record information for my own reminiscence later on. Hope you find them interesting too!

Outside my room window on 30.11. 2010. The roads are usually deserted, but the main roads may have been blocked due to the weather – hence the traffic

At the park near my house.

That’s me going back to my childhood. Three ways I can die :

1. Of hypothermia.
2. The weather beaten rope loosing tension and tearing and my head hitting the rock solid ice at least five feet below.
3. The three trunks converging at a point and plunging me to my death, it’s mathematically impossible that the trunks itself will hit me though.

Of course I didn’t die. Yet.

Oh, Graeme Swann just wrapped up the Australians in Adelaide and England lead the Ashes 1-0.

The furry bee…

…found dead on my table.

All alone one day

Two images I took when I was at home.

The one on top was taken when I was staying at the Polonnaruwa Rest house, a beautiful building cantilevered onto the lake, I am told it was hastily built as a place where Queen Elizabeth II can stay when she visited Sri Lanka I think in 1952.

I was staying there with some friends and they all left me after a few days as I had to stay an extra day to finish some commitments, naturally I was feeling a bit lonely after having spent so long in the company of my friends. Then all my phone could do was make calls and recieve them and send and recieve texts, facebook was relatively new and twitter was unheard of. If I recall right, this was taken in 2007, and justifiably insinuates my frame of mind at that moment in time.

The second picture was taken from the terrace of the Mt Lavinia hotel, obviously this guy doesnt feel lonely, his friends were swimming around him as if he was seeking refuge on top of that rock from a bunch of Piranhas, albeit the picture suggests otherwise.

Somehow, the second picture reminds me of this incident and hence I don’t really appreciate the stories that flood my mind when I see it.