How the melting snow left me with a drive for change
This week the UK was hit by the ‘Beast from the East’. In other words it snowed, predictably bringing the British infrastructure to a grinding halt. Schools closed. Trains were cancelled. Crashes and breakdowns caused chaos on the roads. It was basically the end of the world.
Unless you were a small girl who wanted to go and play in the snow.
In which case you donned more layers than a cake on the Great British Bake Off and pulled on your toughest boots. With a scarf wrapped round your neck and a hat popped on your head you were out the door exploring this great white wonderland.
The fact that she started singing Christmas songs was a little anachronistically askew but the sentiment was definitely true. We were dashing through the snow on a one horse (one Daddy) open sleigh (IKEA tea tray with a guy rope tied through it).
The day was brilliant. We made a snowman that was bigger than she was. We sledged down hills whooping with joy. We threw snowballs at each other and built an igloo for her toy rabbit.
And why was I so enthusiastic to get out in the snow? Because I’d looked at the forecast for the following day and it was 7 degrees centigrade and rain. For us and the snow it was now or never.
Because, and here is the most obvious fact of the day, snow melts.
And once it’s gone, it’s gone. You’ve got to make the most of it while it is here, which is sort of the philosophy I hope that I carry forward in my life.
But today’s blog isn’t about some metaphysical Carpe Diem paradigm. It’s about what happens when the snow melts. When the perfect white world that you have been surrounded in suddenly becomes dirty again. The trees are back to their muddy brown and the limp dead grass looks a shade of green not dissimilar to bile.
But the thing that I noticed the most, once the last flake had melted away, was the inordinate amount of litter in my local neighbourhood. Every hedge was clustered with garbage. Plastic bags clutched to tree branches. Discarded rubbish scattered at the side of the road.
I was so disgusted that I decided to do something about it.
So I ordered some litter pickers and some biodegradable plastic bin bags off of the internet. And when they arrive, the Sprog and I are going to return to the scene of our sledging excitement and we’re going to put right what our species has got so wrong and pick up the litter that we have strewn everywhere. We’re going to pick litter on the walk to school. We’re going to pick litter on the way to the park.
Basically, in the style of John Wayne, Dogunnit, we’re gonna clean up this here town.
If you are interested in cleaning up your local neighbourhood, have a search for a litter group near you. If you (or someone you know) is a kid then point them towards the inspirational Meek girls, Amy and Ella, over at their site Kids Against Plastic. If you’re female then check out the eXXpedition crew. And if you are neither female or a kid (or are both, or in fact any combination of gender and age) then how about supporting the Keep Britain Tidy scheme Great British Spring Clean which is happening all March.
Thanks for being amazing!