"We haven't seen snow like this since...2009!?!?"

This past week, the dwellers of the United Kingdom, the rainy frontier, learned what it is to be eskimos, and gained immense respect for Canadians.
(The picture shows snowy Charlbury)
Monday= 'snow storm' by British standards - London shut down, here in the Cotswolds we had about 4 centimetres of snow (school is not cancelled).
Tuesday= 'snow storm' with freezing rain (every other school is closed except Oxford...probably).
Wednesday= more snow but not a lot of accumulation (still no snow day! cruelty at its meanest).
Thursday=fantastic day. We started off by being woken up around 7:30am by Ben who was hollering about the amount of snow outside. There was actually a huge amount by British standards – like 4 inches! By 8, Ben was out sledging (sledding) already! Phoebe and I were REALLY hoping for a snow day. No luck. But we were in charge of leading chapel because Reverend Mike was out of town. So we showed up early at the church to toss something together! Last minute? Not us. We started with Roses and Thorns, then Jesus, Lover of my Soul, a devotional by Syd about rest in weakness, prayer, and How Deep the Father’s Love for Us. All in all, I think it went really well. Then we took our time getting to the train station- a bunch of our group got into a serious snowball fight with some of the local kids (most schools were closed) –I think we started it-, assuming that the train would be abominably late. It was not. We RAN. But this time, we made it. As we rode along and tried to catch our breath, we saw piles of people sledging down the hills in towns along the track. Happy snow day everyone else. Blast.
We got to Oxford about and hour and a half before lunch so I went to the Upper Rad Cam to do some more work on Margaret Cavendish. Essays due Friday the 13th! Blech.
Lunch at RPC was soooo delicious! Some kind of delicious creamy vegetable soup (no chunks) with noodles and big meat balls! With fresh bread on the side! And dessert! Sherry Trifle. Sherry Trifle, Sherry Trifle. Whipped cream (so much better here), custard, and jello with Sherry. It was yummy. And to top it all off, we had a gigantic snowball fight with our fellow students here. It lasted super long and everyone got SOAKED! What a hoot! When it was all over, there was no snow left in the quad - the ground was bare, the trees and bushes were stripped, and the poor snowman was sacrificed for the cause.
In fact, everywhere you went in Oxford or Charlbury, people threw snowballs at you! So you threw snowballs right back...what a great day!
It took a long time for my feet to get nice and warm again! I almost caught my death like poor Prince Albert!, my feet were wet aaaaaaall day – should have worn my Wellies!
Friday= Soooo much potential for a snow day, but instead, our instructor John took the train to us in Chralbury and we had a super short intensive lecture. How depressing. But our co-op lunch, prepared by Phoebe's group, was delicious! Afterwards, Carolyn, Melissa, Chloe and I decided to go sledging rather than study for our exam the next day. (Oh, I should not have said that!) So we found this ancient sled in the basement of Chloe and Melissa's house and christened it 'the family heirloom'. It took us a bit to find the hill...we ended up meeting Laura, Kev and Ben on the way and had a brief snowball war...everyone against Ben. Eventually getting to the hill, we were anxious to try out the family heirloom. Chloe volunteered to do the test run. No luck, what a terrible sled! Haha...it was soo rusty! But we were determined so we pulled the sled down the hill ourselves! By this time, the people around us were paying attention to our ridiulousness and everyone was just having a jolly good time laughing at us! It was really funny! We found this manky piece of insulation at the bottom of the hill and decided to test its aerodynamics...much more success with this one! Melissa had a good run to. Me, not so much. I was about 4x the length of the insulation and probably broke my shoulder from the impact of diving onto it. I think I made it about 10ft down the hill. All in all, it was glorious fun.
Saturday= Exam #1 on Early Modern Life Writings. I think it went fairly well.
Sunday= Sunday lunch. Yum, thank you Sue!
Monday= Exam #2 on Early Modern Art and Architecture. I think it went fairly well.
Now everything is a blur - just write papers. How odious.
Friday the 13th= ITALY!