Trapped!

On By Mick CanningIn drones, humour, opinion, satire, shopping

It’s snowing here, and I fear we are completely cut off from civilisation.

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Well, this is the UK; we don’t exaggerate a great deal, but our experience of bad weather, especially here in our little corner of the country, is not quite as extreme as in some other places, so cut us some slack, will you?

Now, if it was raining hard, we wouldn’t bat an eyelid. Or eyelids…there could be a grammatical issue here, but I’m not going to pursue it right now. This is the UK, so we do rain. We may not get a monsoon, but, hell, we get more than enough of the stuff. We get floods and high tides and days and days of it pouring out of leaden skies onto us. We get so much of it that if we ever get a period of more than a week without rain, we officially declare it a drought and order everyone not to use hosepipes and make it compulsory to take baths with a friend, and ration it so severely that all we have to drink is beer.

Actually, we should declare a drought most weeks, I reckon.

But back to the present. I had been planning to walk to the nearest large supermarket to do our regular shop for large items, but now this doesn’t look nearly so attractive. And, quite frankly, nor does the thought of the return trip with a rucksack full of catfood and soya milk and other heavy bulkies.

And what is worse, we are running low on essential supplies; eggs, bread, beer…you know, essentials.

Of course, we can get some of these round the corner at the little shops in our own little high street, but because of the severe arctic conditions prevailing outside, we have been reduced to glowering at each other and using psychological warfare;

‘I thought you wanted a newspaper.’

‘I do. I thought you might go and get it.’

‘I’ve got a blog post to write and, anyway, I’m not worried whether we get a newspaper or not.’

‘We’ve got no eggs. Don’t you want an omelette this morning?’

‘I’ve had cereal.’

‘You always have an omelette on Saturdays.’

‘Not always. We need milk soon, too. I only put a splash in my tea, you use much more than me.’

‘Grrr’

‘Snarl’

But you can get everything delivered, now. Perhaps we could get our eggs delivered by Amazon drone, since this is the coming thing. And Amazon sell everything in the world now, or will do soon.

‘That doesn’t sound a good idea,’ says my wife (we’re talking again, although we still haven’t gone to the shops) ‘perhaps they will just put a chicken on the drone, instead, and when it reaches the customer’s house the drone could automatically give it a hormone injection to stimulate egg laying, then return to base afterwards.’

Of course, the calculations would be quite complicated; they would have to take into account the weight and body mass of the chicken, the number of eggs required…heaven knows what else. But I like the idea of parachuting in emergency chickens.

I’m a little worried about the larger items, though. Crates of wine or sacks of rice might pose an altogether different and somewhat stiffer test. How big are the drones? It’s all very well in theory, but none of want drones the size of a 747 landing in our streets with a new refrigerator and a week’s worth of potatoes for the neighbours.

Oh, it’s stopped snowing, now.

85 thoughts on “Trapped!”

  1. Do you suppose it’s universal? The spousal sparring? You have captured the tone of many of our conversations, right down to the “Grr” and the “Snarl.”

    I enjoyed this. But must let you know that in our household, cat food falls into the “Essential” category.

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  10. Mick I can get you clearly. Even Nairobi is rationing water. Climate is like very unpredictable everywhere. I liked your drone concept and the best was sending chicken and the harmone injection to lay eggs for the customer. Hehe. Let there be sunshine soon at your place or maybe I can send some sunshine from Nairobi.

    One thing is for sure all couples do have this kind of conversations, my opinion is life will be boring if they are formal and not having these conversations. It’s like adding spices to a bland food. 🙂
    Meena

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  11. Oh you poor dears! We get snow all the time but everyone still acts like we’ll be marooned indoors for weeks. Bread, milk and eggs are cleared out within minutes of the announcement of a storm. It’s really crazy!

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  12. Your wife sounds like a funny woman, Mick! It is hard to get motivated to go outside when it’s really cold and dreary. We currently have two feet of snow in our yard and it’s making me a little stir crazy being stuck indoors.

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  13. I think a visit to the doctor might just recommend you a trip to India to tide over difficult weather condition. We have sunny days, no rain and perfect weather for you to write or read a book, Mick!

    I’m told that favorite topic of Brits to strike a conversation is weather! Is that right? 😉

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    1. I’ll have to try the doctor then, Arv. It’s a long shot but it might work!

      Yes, a favourite topic – which is why i wrote the post. It does seem sometimes that we become obsessed with the weather. I think the reason is that whereas many countries have a climate that is reasonably predictable, ours seems to be extremely changeable.

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      1. I have heard stories about unpredictable continental weather. I’m not sure if UK also falls under the continental weather classification. What I have also heard as far as Uk goes is dense fog and rains in winters.
        It is this cold weather which brings many charter tourists from UK and Russia to the sunny Goa beaches. I’m sure you’ll love a “shot of Goa” when it forces you to crib about bad weather! 🙂

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        1. It’s not quite Continental, which is actually slightly more predictable than ours. We get plenty of rain, and a certain amount of fog in winter, certainly. I’m not sure I’d bother with Goa, since I’m not a beach person – I find sitting on a beach to be about as boring as it’s possible to get. However, that leaves plenty of other Indian options, of course!

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  14. Snow in the UK can truly bring life to a complete halt and begin the decline of civilisation as we know it. They get 3 feet of snow in Canada and no-one notices but a few flakes here and we all run out of bread and milk! You’re right about our changeable climate being the reason for our extreme reactions to snow, rain, sun, fog and even frost. Makes living here all the more interesting doesn’t it?

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    1. True, you can never be sure what you’re going to get. I’ve sunbathed in February in UK in the past, and experienced snow in June (both in England). Now, all I have to is dodge the pack of timber wolves outside, and I can get to the shop to see if there’s any milk left.

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    1. Thank you. But…writing and photo blog? The photos link is Picfair, an external site that sells photos for photographers – I assume that was where you went. And this is my writing blog. The ‘My writing’ page is just a little about it; the posts are a mix of bits and pieces!

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  16. nexi

    Mick, I’m not sure where the error lies, but if I follow the ‘view full profile’ link under your photo, there is a link to the Mick Canning site – but the second linked site is not to travel, photo and painting as it states but actually links directly to a site called Hot to the Touch – an escort agency -the address line is mickcanning.com – their photo is visible in the reduced site image on your profile if you’d like to check them out. I hope that’s helpful!

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    1. Ah, I see the problem. The .com site is one that I used to have, and gave up when I started this one. I shall go over to my Gravatar and eliminate the link – I had forgotten that I had put it there (so much to remember!). It also reminds me that there are one or two other places I need to do that also. Thanks!

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  17. We have the same idea about essentials: when a snow storm is predicted, I make sure I have bread, milk, eggs and alcohol. I just prefer wine to beer. Getting it is a chore, because the entire city is in panic mode before the dreaded half-inch of white death arrives, so the grocery stores are jammed and everyone is in full-on hoarding mode. But I can throw and elbow with the best of them, so I almost always come home with a nice bottle of white wine. And sometimes even bread.

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  18. haha that made me chuckle. Thank you. You are lucky you had some snow, we didn’t. (I think The Downs shields us) Yes, its always a great catastrophe isn’t it when we get some snow. And it has been really cold outside these past few days. Anyway what can we talk about if it isn’t the Weather. Good post, I can picture most clearly you and your wife ” discussing ” who will venture into the cold. Who was it who said ” I am going out and I may be some time…?”

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    1. Ah, that was Captain Oates. I had no desire to emulate him, yesterday.
      No snow? The wind was from the North east, so I suppose we got the last of it. I have to say I’m glad it went quite quickly; I like it when it lingers as proper snow, but when we just get soggy slush it is even more depressing than the average winter’s day. Roll on summer!
      Oh, well. Back to the novel.
      p.s. I’ve enrolled in one British Library course, so thanks for putting me on to that. If it goes well I may well try another.
      Best regards!

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  19. OH I am pleased. Yes I rather like the British Library, I am doing the Online Marketing Course later this month. if nothing else its a great place to go and just plug in your laptop and write. Lovely places to hide away from the world…

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  21. Kind of reminds me of the day before our last snowstorm – the one where we were supposed to get 4 inches but got 14. The wife does the grocery shopping and thankfully responded to a gentle prod, so we survived our “trapped” phase without panic and with a minimum of snarl.

    Of course, when we’re in a phase of day after day of seemingly unceasing rain we sometimes feel a little trapped too.,

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    1. The rain can get rather wearing, Dave. I don’t mind it in the summer, really, but when we get day after day of it in the winter, and each day is dark and cold and grey and just thoroughly miserable, I feel a strong urge to jump on a plane somewhere!

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