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26.2 miles in under 3 and a half hours. Sounds easy on paper and I will be posting regular updates, the highs and the lows. Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

Monday 2 February 2009

Snow - like the Blitz apparently


A couple of times today I have heard the phrase "like the Blitz" when people have been stranded at home because of the snow. It would seem that during the torrid bombing of London, we all went outside and made ad-hoc toboggans out of dustbinb lids and built snowman. I can't remember my grandad telling me that story. Perhaps the Alzheimers was worse than we thought.
I suppose what the media may mean is that we all have a stiff upper lip and make the best of a bad situation. But instead of Fritz's bombs it's frozen rain. Overstatement, definitely, but there is something familiar about the reaction today.
I popped down to the shop to buy more tissues for my perpetually running right nostril and saw that the local pub was chocca-block. The windows were starting to mist up and at 3pm it was pretty busy. The last time I had seen this phenomenon was the July 7th bombings. I ran a pub in London Bridge in 2005 and our little bar which did next to no trade in the daytime, was heaving. It seems as though when there is a problem, and no-one can help, maybe you can hire.... a bar for a day. Everyone came together to talk, watch the news and try to create a community. It never happened again and those souls never met again, but there were some temporary friendships forged for just a solitary afternoon as people tried to make the best of a bad situation. Was it ever thus? I like to think so. In times of economic gloom and with pubs and bars on their knees, maybe they will be praying for snow all week. A little glimmer of sunshine through the storm.
Not the Blitz, certainly, but a spirit undiminished when London is dealt an unexpected day off.

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