The Beast from the East

The beast from the East was well and truly a beast. A force of nature not to be reckoned with!

But we weren't complaining!

Five days of snow showers, sub-zero temperatures and all white everything. 

A freak act of nature (well, we all know it's global warming right?) that caused havoc across Britain at the very start of March. 

It all started on a Tuesday, when I woke up to find a blanket of snow had covered our garden in London. I couldn't quite believe my eyes! Coming from the south of Spain, you don't really get to see snow on a regular basis ever. 

I couldn't quite contain my excitement. I grabbed a coat, put some wellies over my pyjamas and sprinted outside to check on my car (camera in hand, of course) and was greeted by the most beautiful site. 

It was still early, around 7am and the London commuters hadn't quite arisen yet so my street was peaceful, the snow pristine and I felt quite contempt to have made the first footsteps in the snow. 

My second thought after all of this, was how am I going to get to work?

Not only have I never really experienced snow like this before (apart from that cold Winter during my 2nd year at Durham University) but I have never ever driven in snow (gulp). 

I messaged one of my co-workers who was also heading into the office and managed to catch a lift in, but even then, the car was sliding all over the place. 

Funnily enough, once we got on the motorway the roads were pretty clear, probably due to the sheer panic of the British transportation and even more bizarre, was when we got into work about 40 minutes West of London (in Buckinghamshire) there was practically zero snow! 

London had some of the thickest snow it had seen in years and years and years. I won't even mention Scotland.

This carried on for a couple of days, until we could no longer drive as the roads in London were too icey (-4 degrees Celsius!) and were forced to stay at home working.

Which was great for about the first day and then my housemate and I went a bit crazy for lack of human interaction. I mean we had each other but spending 48 hours on lock-down with someone in a closed confined space can make you go a little stir-crazy.

So we went out to play in the snow!

And absolutely FROZE!

It was all worth it, though, I felt like a kid in a playground it was fantastic and magical watching the snow come down whilst sat in the candlelight house (we did have electricity, we just wanted to make it more atmospheric).

On Friday night we even ventured out to the pub. I had my new trusty snow boots with me, which I had just bought for my upcoming trip (more about that later) but never did I think I would need to wear them in London.

Most bizarrely, we woke up on Saturday and all the snow had disappeared. Vanished into thin air like nothing had ever happened.

Even now we sit and ask ourselves, did London really get hit by a crazy cold snow storm at the start of March?

What were your experiences of the Beast from the East? Did you get hit by some freak weather?