Frozen

Although I haven’t written a lot about the recent ‘big freeze’, we, here in Belgium, have had our fair share of icy cold days, with temperatures in Brussels as low as -13°C during the night and -9° C during the day. In the southern and hilly part of the country they even dropped to -20°C.


The worst day was probably last Monday, when the -9°C day temperature felt more like -20°C due to a stiff north-easterly wind. Another particularly cold day was yesterday. Despite the approaching Atlantic depression that is supposed to be pushing warmer sea air, thaw, rain and maybe some snow in our direction, yesterday afternoon was positively Siberian. At about three in the afternoon I had a small errand to run, which took me some 200 metres up the road from my home. Despite my three layers of upper clothing, I was frozen stiff by the time I got back home, although the walk only took me less than 10 minutes.

A welcome touch of spring ...

Back inside I positioned myself – still wearing all three layers of clothing – in front of the radiator in the kitchen, where I stayed for 10 minutes before taking off my coat and scarf. I spent the best part of the afternoon, cuddled up under a blanket, in my favourite armchair, watching the world go by. I really felt quite miserable and afraid that I was coming down with something. There is a lot of flu around these days …

This morning, however, after a restful night of sleep on my brand-new goose feather and duvet pillow, I felt invigorated and fit enough to ‘tackle’ the icy roads. All weekend long, our weather people have been warning us about the coming rain and snow that would immediately stick to the frozen soil, thus creating a dangerous skating ring.

The first thing I did this morning after getting out of bed was looking out of the kitchen window. The road looked slightly wet, but no snow had fallen overnight. The few cars I saw were driving at a normal speed. While I was getting ready for work, I thanked the weather gods for being so merciful. Half an hour later I stepped out into the road just when … the first frosty flakes came floating down!

Thanks to the relentless nightly efforts of our municipal workers, the roads were covered in salt and not slippery at all. I made it to work without any problems worth mentioning, although I drove very carefully, limiting my speed to 50km/h even in places where the speed limit is 70 km/h.

Right now – I’m writing this during my lunch break and will be posting it later this afternoon, when I get home from work – the sky is overcast. The dark grey clouds look heavy with rain/snow. According to the weather site on the internet, temperatures are between 2°C and 3°C; not really reassuring if you ask me. Wish me luck!

=====

Update: The mere fact that I'm posting the above, means that I got home 'sans problème'. The roads are clear, not a touch of snow or ice and temperatures around 3°C. Let's hope we've seen the last of frost, ice and snow for this winter.