A post in which it is obvious that I am English

Guess what?

(I'll have you know that these photos were taken at about 11am. It was snowing and really was that dark, has been like this for days. Continued snowing for quite a while as well. Above is the garden. Below, the view from the front door - when I say we live next to a mosque, you can see that we really do live right next door to a mosque... and have grown to love the call to prayer, even at 5am!)

IT SNOWED! And not a light namby pamby dusting of snow either. There's a good foot and a half on the ground and that was from one day of snowing. The forecast for today: Heavy snow. Tomorrow? Heavy snow. Friday? Heavy Snow. That's a whole lot of snow coming our way.

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Being British and therefore not used to snow, I find this fantastically exciting. It looks so pretty! It is proper white fluffy snow, a powder dream for a skier and a snow ball dream for small boys. Although getting ready to go out is a real palaver, what with waterproof trousers, hats, scarves, gloves, snow boots and all, the boys want to spend all afternoon outdoors. So it is snowmen, sledging, snow balls and glowing red cheeks for us all the way. When they tire of that there is always a path that needs clearing or snow to be swept off the car, activities that could have been invented especially for small boys. And there I was thinking what was I going to do with them all winter.

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The Bosnians are not so keen on the snow. They walk around huddled darkly in their coats, hands thrust deep into their pockets, muttering 'zima' (winter) and tsking. They know that snow is a total nightmare in reality. The roads are treacherous, the walkways become ice rinks and it is going to get COLD (max temp forecast for Friday, a balmy -6C). Their kids love it as much as mine do, there were a whole load of them going to nursery on sledges this morning, but the adults know that snow looks pretty for about a whole day before it just becomes a wet, cold misery.

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They know how to deal with it though. There may have been 2 foot or so of snow, but all the buses were out this morning (as opposed to London's efforts in the snow fall last year), every single car has got winter tyres on (by law) and Tuzla, being the city built on salt mines, is never ever going to run out of grit to salt the roads with.

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No doubt, by the end of the week when we are totally snowed in and the boys are bored of being wet and cold, I'll be fed up with it too. But right now, I'm loving it for being so pretty, so Christmassy, so indisputably winter.

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(ps sorry about the lack of gaps between paragraphs, Blogger being a pain and not letting me do it and I've got bored of trying to make it...)

First day of spring?

Are you thinking gentle temperatures, delicate flowers or going outside without a jacket on?

That was last week. Today it snows.

Enough already.

snowing again

It's done nothing but snow for the past 4 days. For one brief moment it started raining, but then that water froze into a nice layer of ice which is now underneath a whole lot more snow.

For a Fraught Mummy, this means we are back to the winter routines detailed before (see here) but with an added twist. Yesterday I tried it at nursery.

I pick the boys up at 12. It was 1.30 by the time I managed to leave. There were all the usual scraps and battles about putting on the water proof trousers, socks, boots, a layer underneath the coat, the coats itself, let alone hats, gloves, scarves. But this time it was in front of an audience. Such fun! thought the boys. Look how fast we can run away from Mummy. Watch! we can run into a classroom full of sleeping children screaming at the top of our voices. Can you see? we can find a stash of toy guns and run around loudly shooting everyone. Do you think we can make Mummy really cross, especially if we take off our boots after she has put them on? Ah hah! Mummy is trying not to shout but she isn't going to be able to restrain herself if I run into this office and leave my all my clothes there. Oops, she is really shouting now, she'll be in a good mood for the rest of the afternoon. Let's hide and laugh manically, that'll make it all better! Even better - lets go in different directions and both create carnage. She'll love that best of all!

Are there any other Bosnian children creating such havoc? Er, no. It's been bothering me for a while. Why is it that it is always my children creating such chaos whilst the Bosnian children look on and behave beautifully? Obviously lax parenting, poor discipline and too much sugary food. But, I have a new excuse. I've noticed that the Bosnians are canny. None of them appear to more than one child in tow. Certainly not 2 children with only 18 months between them. I don't know if they just have bigger gaps between their kids, manage to leave one at home with Granny, only have one child or what. But, I'm pretty sure that even I could manage if I only had to get one of them dressed at a time. I'd have a fighting chance of retaining control if I only took one child out. It is trying to get the second variable pointing in the right direction and wearing the right amount of clothes at the same time that causes the majority of my problems.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Britain in snow

I'm listening to Radio 4 debating why it is that Britain is totally unable to cope with snow. They are mainly concentrating upon whether there are enough gritters, did the authorities do enough to clear the roads and so on. I can't help but feel that they are missing the point. The Bosnians get swamped by snow on a regular basis, and although they are pretty good on the gritting front they are not perfect. The big difference is that every single car must have winter tyres (and carry snow chains) during the winter months so the cars are able to cope with wintry conditions far better. I can't see the British public buying that as a solution though.

after the big freeze

Who'd have thought it? After weeks were the temperature barely managed to get up to -9C, it has rallied and we are now basking in a balmy +4C. The lethal ice has melted away, and everything is becoming one big slushfest as the snow starts to melt.

This has bought with it a whole load of new issues for a fraught Mummy to deal with. We can now walk the dog, and the soft layer of ice on the snow is brilliant for the newly invented game of crunch walking - who can get the biggest crunch when walking on the snow. However, the amount of mud, slush, filthy water and general gunge that now accompanies us whenever we step foot outside is making me loath to venture out much.

The boys, now used to daily sledding and snowball fights, are wanting to go out as much as possible. So the mud fest outside is rapidly appearing inside. I'm already nostalgic for the cold snap - at least the snow makes everything look pristine.

Gas spats and snow

Like much of Europe, Bosnia has been having a bit of a cold snap this past week. Temperatures haven't been above freezing point for a while now, the next weeks predictions are for a high of -2C and lows of around -15C. Last night about a foot of snow fell and everything has suddenly turned white. Normally, snow and cold aren't too much of a problem here, people are used to it, all the cars have (or are supposed to have) winter tyres and snow chains. Houses are well heated.

However, Russia and the Ukraine have been having a bit of a spat about something, and have turned off the gas pipe line in the Ukraine. This has had a knock-on effect for the supplies of gas in Bosnia which have stopped overnight (see article here). People are starting to panic and have bought out electric heaters in the stores. Tuzla is less affected than most, as many of us are on the municipality heating which is supplied by the industrial coke burning plant on the outskirts of town. However there are rumours that this isn't as secure as we had supposed; a similar smelter in Zenica may have to halt, halting that city's municipality heating whilst they are at it.

In the absence of gas, many will turn to electricity to heat their homes, which will cause rather a large surge of usage in the national grid, which may not be able to cope with it. Indeed, we have noticed the electricity going up and down like a yo yo anyway these past few days. I'm off to stock up on candles, locate our torches and test their batteries and to find our camping gas stove in case we lose power for a while.

As Bosnia hasn't got the cash or infrastructure to hold any gas reserves, this spat (which has nothing to do with Bosnia) has the potential to cause real misery here. Fingers crossed they sort it all out like the grown ups they are supposed to be.

UPDATE
Time to stop being flippant. Large parts of Sarajevo, Zenica and Zvornik (where I do most of my research) have now lost heating. They estimate there are 100,000 households are affected. I'm very rude about the massive power station on the outskirts of Tuzla, particularly when they light it up luminous green, but right now, it is my favourite thing in the world. Long may it keep pumping out noxious fumes.