The UK is swaddled in a snow blanket courtesy The Beast from the East and Storm Emma from the Atlantic. Schools, universities, airports and most offices are closed and many bus and train services have been cancelled. It appears that there is nothing to be done but hunker down at home. This means that the weekend effectively starts tonight for most people and started yesterday for me since I stayed at home today. Today, of course, marks the start of the meteorological spring.
Since my social life is a chimera, I prefer to plan ahead for weekends. Staying at home all day during winters is not great for one's mood, I have discovered. So, an extended weekend just means more time to fill with activities. Given that I might be cooped up at home, I'm trying to embrace the situation. Since I didn't do any work today, I am planning to work on Saturday to make up. Work, yoga, the odd TV show and blogging should see me through this weekend.
Of course, and keeping up with Storm Emma/The Beast. Living in the UK has made me obsessed with the weather. I have two apps on my phone--the staid BBC app and the edgy Accuweather. Both typify their countries of origin--the BBC app hedges its bets and talks in the language of percentage likelihood of precipitation while Accuweather claims to be able to predict precipitation to the minute. Declarations such as "Rain starting in 34 minutes" exude a thrilling confidence, which I find addictive. If tracking the weather is a form of entertainment for you like it is for me, you don't mind that they are wrong about half the time. A colleague, amused by how much I talk about the weather, has taken to calling me The Weatherman.
One of my pastimes is to check the weather in different cities of the world, particularly those places which I'm attached to and those with extreme weather. So, I track the weather in Pune (my favourite city in India), Madrid (where my sister and her family live), The Hague (where I did my master's and made lifelong friends) and Yakutsk in Russia's Sakha Republic, which is the coldest city tracked by weather apps that I have been able to identify. It is currently -35C there and snowing lightly. I don't have my hometown of Mumbai saved because the temperature in the sweltering city has no relation to how it really feels on the ground.
Since my social life is a chimera, I prefer to plan ahead for weekends. Staying at home all day during winters is not great for one's mood, I have discovered. So, an extended weekend just means more time to fill with activities. Given that I might be cooped up at home, I'm trying to embrace the situation. Since I didn't do any work today, I am planning to work on Saturday to make up. Work, yoga, the odd TV show and blogging should see me through this weekend.
Of course, and keeping up with Storm Emma/The Beast. Living in the UK has made me obsessed with the weather. I have two apps on my phone--the staid BBC app and the edgy Accuweather. Both typify their countries of origin--the BBC app hedges its bets and talks in the language of percentage likelihood of precipitation while Accuweather claims to be able to predict precipitation to the minute. Declarations such as "Rain starting in 34 minutes" exude a thrilling confidence, which I find addictive. If tracking the weather is a form of entertainment for you like it is for me, you don't mind that they are wrong about half the time. A colleague, amused by how much I talk about the weather, has taken to calling me The Weatherman.
One of my pastimes is to check the weather in different cities of the world, particularly those places which I'm attached to and those with extreme weather. So, I track the weather in Pune (my favourite city in India), Madrid (where my sister and her family live), The Hague (where I did my master's and made lifelong friends) and Yakutsk in Russia's Sakha Republic, which is the coldest city tracked by weather apps that I have been able to identify. It is currently -35C there and snowing lightly. I don't have my hometown of Mumbai saved because the temperature in the sweltering city has no relation to how it really feels on the ground.
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