I’m back in the UK, up in North Yorkshire for Christmas and New Year. It’s been snowing here, on & off for about a week and it looks beautiful. Mind you, it does cause havoc on the roads and a lot of people had their Christmas travel plans messed up. I hope everyone ended up in the right place! Or in the words of Dirk Gently, of the Holistic Detective Agency (from the book by Douglas Adams) – you may not have ended up where you had planned to be, but you ended up where you were meant to be… Now there’s a good philosophy for life!
In spite of it being Christmas with all the associated over-indulgence, we’ve been relatively healthy. We found a fantastic butcher outside Harrogate, Elite Meats, which only sells local free range meat and poultry. We bought our xmas goose from there – the producer is called ‘Loose Birds’ – what a great name J. Added to that we had organic brussel sprouts, carrots, potatoes and home grown leeks. Plus our table was decorated with holly sprigs freshly picked from our own field.
This is the first xmas that I remember it snowing in London for many, many years. According to WikiAnswers, the last time it snowed in London on Christmas was:
“Well the last time it snowed on Christmas day was like 1996 but only a few flakes fell. To get more significant snow you need to go back to 1974, when the whole of England basically got covered in a light dusting. But the last time people needed gumboots to walk down Fleet Street was way back in 1895.”
The UK MetOffice notes that the last winter that the ‘frost fair’ was held on the frozen Thames River was back in 1813-1814.
It’s not a coincidence that ‘Global Warming’ changed name to ‘Climate Change’… According to The Australian newspaper article, it was in 2006 that the politicians and media started using the phrase ‘Climate Change’ more than ‘Global Warming’.
On that note I wish you all a happy holiday season and a new year filled with health and prosperity…