London in white

As I was saying in yesterday’s post, it has been snowing last night.

Well it turns out it hasn’t stopped, and it brought pretty much the whole city of London down to a halt. Not that we’re anywhere near some “Day After Tomorrow” scenario with liners ships unexpectedly showing up around Oxford Circus. It is a mere 15-20cm of snow, which would be a disappointment in Switzerland, but it’s still the heaviest snow in 18 years here.

Snowy view from my room
Snowy view from my room, by theefer

Which means today there was no tube, no bus, no trains, at least not where I live. Taxis were overwhelmed and slow. Even after only three weeks of living in London, a street free of massive red double-deckers is about as peculiar as seeing someone carrying skis along the Thames. Which I also saw this morning, when I went for a walk around the neighbourhood to take pictures (see the Flickr set) while waiting for 10am, at which point I could ring the office to get remote access to my computer there, since there was no way for me to come in physically anyway.

Discarded buses
Discarded buses, by theefer

It turns out many people don’t have jobs who can be transparently performed over SSH, HTTP and XMPP, and all these people (up to a fifth of the workers) seemed to be busy shopping, taking pictures and throwing snowballs.

Skiing along the Thames?
Skiing along the Thames?, by theefer

Now, let’s see how many days it will take to clear the mess up and go back to normal… The snow is still here.

White roads
White roads, by theefer