Fri 13 Feb 2009
I don’t have any, before you get excited. It is just that the title seemed appropriate to the story.
It was last Wednesday morning and my phone went off at 8am, which it does not do very often. A quick glance showed it to be my parents home number. It is worth pointing out at this juncture that my parents never call me. Ever. I think the last time I had a call from either of them was six months ago when my Mum had been hit by a bus (she is fine, apart from the screaming in terror every time a bus appears on TV).
It was my Mum.
“Don’t worry. Everything is OK!” were her first words, clearly anticipating my panic.
I took this to be her way of breaking some exceptionally bad news to me in her gentle Irish manner.
“What do you mean everyone is OK? What’s happened? Why are you calling?!”
“Oh, I just wanted to tell you that we’re snowed in. We had a LOT of snow last night.”
“Right.”
“It’s quite beautiful actually.”
“And you called to tell me that at 8am because you assumed I hadn’t listened to the news, looked at the Internet, turned on a television, or indeed opened my curtains?”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
“Is there any danger of it melting in the next hour or so? Or was it really essential you call to tell me about it at this very moment?”
We agreed that adverse weather conditions no longer necessitate a phone call outside normal office hours, unless a) someone has been hit by lightening, or b) a freak tornado has caused millions of pounds worth of improvements to my home town.

