Well, spoiler alert, it was not fun.
The thing is, in popular media, being snowed in is portrayed as one of two things. Either a Jack Torrance-esque nightmare, or a happy holiday story complete with snow angels and loved ones; delicious food and cocoa by the roaring open fire. Given that I’m not particularly predisposed to violent tendencies and my house isn’t haunted, I wasn’t concerned about becoming a character from The Shining. (My husband may have been more concerned about that but this isn’t his story.) And so, with thoughts of sparkling lights and cocoa and blankets, it became my life’s ambition to get snowed in; not that it would ever happen, given that I live in a country that doesn’t get a lot of snow, in an area that rarely sees snow at all.
Until the weather reports started talking about the Beast from the East.
I laughed. It was March, not the snowiest of months. I was well ahead with the spring gardening prep and there the weather forecasters were, talking about potentially feet of snow. I assumed it would amount to no more than a spot of squirrel dandruff but still. I walked the dogs early, just in case, grabbed the shovel from the garage on the same basis as taking an umbrella with you means it definitely won’t rain, and I thanked my lucky stars that we’d had our shopping delivered the day before so we’d be alright for food.
And then the snow started.
By 8pm we couldn’t open the back door to get to the shovel. Brute force had to be employed to retrieve it and bring it into the house.
By 10pm, we had to dig out around the back door again.
By the time we got up in the morning, we were snowed in.
There was no cocoa, because I hadn’t ordered any with the last shop. There was no open fire because the logs were in the log store on the far side of the garden and there was a three foot snowdrift between us and them. There were no snow angels or sparkling lights.
Instead, my husband became a slightly grumpy lump under the duvet and had to be lured out with chocolate buttons. My chihuahua mix turned into an angry snapping turtle and had to be picked up and plopped in the snow to stop her from laying dog eggs in the house. My other chihuahua mix wrapped herself up in a blanket so thoroughly that she got stuck and had to be rescued. And my terrier mix thought it was the best day of his life because I threw snowballs for him before my fingers turned numb and I worried about frostbite.
Four days later, the snowplough finally reached us. Two days after that, the snow started to melt.
My lifetime’s ambition to get snowed in had been achieved.
I never want to get snowed in again.
INSTANT NOODLES 