Liveblogging the snowpocalypse
Nov. 30th, 2010 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustWe took the risk, and we went out yesterday evening: and since we had no major problems, we must have been brave rather than foolhardy. We packed shovels and sandwiches and changes of footwear and towels and went first to the pool (where we had a very pleasant quiet swim between five and six: but this is no indication that will always be a good time to choose) and then on to the Sage for a concert called 'Future Traditions', featuring the second year students of the folk music degree at Newcastle University.
This was a bit of a gamble, too, but it too paid off. About twenty young musicians (I got the impression this was the whole of the second year, including four Scandinavian exchange students) in shifting alliances (they'd clearly been encouraged to think of names for these bands, with varying degrees of success: the Cheesy Ones*, the Great Danes, the Soggy Peacocks...) to play one of two pieces each. All traditional, I think, or at least that mix of 'origin unknown', O'Carolan, Child ballads and nineteenth century parlour ballads and dance tunes, plus the odd 'a friend of ours wrote this'; mostly instrumental but with some impressive singing, too; lots of fiddles, some guitars, a variety of squeeze boxes - and a hammered dulcimer, very effectively used. Certainly we've seen support acts at the Sage who were less ready to perform in public (there's a rant about support acts just waiting to be written, but not tonight).
We were afraid that it would have continued to snow while we were at the Sage, and we'd have trouble getting home: and the road out of Durham up to the motorway had not been all that clear when we left. But if anything, the opposite had happened, the temperature was milder and the road clearer at ten than it had been at six. The only really tricky bit was the last few yards up the hill to our door, and even that we managed, more or less. I'd been prepared to park futher down the street and walk the last bit, but that wasn't necessary, we parked (albeit at an odd angle) outside our door.
This morning there was fresh snow lying on the doorstep, but only a sprinkling of round hard pellets. The thaw had reached the trees on the hillside behind us, too, which were all bare, greenish black instead of yesterday's monochrome.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler went out to improve on his parking, and discovered that the winter isn't over yet: he got stranded in the middle of the road, and it took him and a neighbour over an hour of shoveling to achieve parallel parking. More snow has fallen since then, and what was wet has become icy. We decided not to go out this evening, and tomorrow's poetry launch has been cancelled (the publisher set out this morning from her home in darkest Northumberland to collect the books, got stuck, the 4X4 which came to her rescue got stuck too and it took a tractor to get her home again).
But the milk and the newspaper are still being delivered, today the post got through as well, we have heating and internet. Sooner or later we will have to shop (we've run out of onions). Who knows what tomorrow will bring?
*"We were trying to think of a name, and someone said 'The problem is, all the good names are taken, there's nothing left but the cheesy ones...'"
This was a bit of a gamble, too, but it too paid off. About twenty young musicians (I got the impression this was the whole of the second year, including four Scandinavian exchange students) in shifting alliances (they'd clearly been encouraged to think of names for these bands, with varying degrees of success: the Cheesy Ones*, the Great Danes, the Soggy Peacocks...) to play one of two pieces each. All traditional, I think, or at least that mix of 'origin unknown', O'Carolan, Child ballads and nineteenth century parlour ballads and dance tunes, plus the odd 'a friend of ours wrote this'; mostly instrumental but with some impressive singing, too; lots of fiddles, some guitars, a variety of squeeze boxes - and a hammered dulcimer, very effectively used. Certainly we've seen support acts at the Sage who were less ready to perform in public (there's a rant about support acts just waiting to be written, but not tonight).
We were afraid that it would have continued to snow while we were at the Sage, and we'd have trouble getting home: and the road out of Durham up to the motorway had not been all that clear when we left. But if anything, the opposite had happened, the temperature was milder and the road clearer at ten than it had been at six. The only really tricky bit was the last few yards up the hill to our door, and even that we managed, more or less. I'd been prepared to park futher down the street and walk the last bit, but that wasn't necessary, we parked (albeit at an odd angle) outside our door.
This morning there was fresh snow lying on the doorstep, but only a sprinkling of round hard pellets. The thaw had reached the trees on the hillside behind us, too, which were all bare, greenish black instead of yesterday's monochrome.
durham_rambler went out to improve on his parking, and discovered that the winter isn't over yet: he got stranded in the middle of the road, and it took him and a neighbour over an hour of shoveling to achieve parallel parking. More snow has fallen since then, and what was wet has become icy. We decided not to go out this evening, and tomorrow's poetry launch has been cancelled (the publisher set out this morning from her home in darkest Northumberland to collect the books, got stuck, the 4X4 which came to her rescue got stuck too and it took a tractor to get her home again).But the milk and the newspaper are still being delivered, today the post got through as well, we have heating and internet. Sooner or later we will have to shop (we've run out of onions). Who knows what tomorrow will bring?
*"We were trying to think of a name, and someone said 'The problem is, all the good names are taken, there's nothing left but the cheesy ones...'"
