S-no-w School today!

No school or college today because of the ongoing snow affecting the entire country. Parts of England were only a few degrees warmer than Antarctica last night, and the forecast is for lows of around -20C (-4F) tonight in some areas. 

My Dad and I had to go and get some shopping earlier today, and decided to drop into the ghost town that was my Mum’s work. As we left, she and two of her work mates were watching us leave from behind a window, and watched me slide ‘gracefully’ over on to my backside. I haven’t seen my Dad laugh like he did in ages, and my ‘audience’ thought it was extremely funny as well. If only somebody was filming then I could send it to Matthew Hall (Harry Hill) and get £250. 

Back at home, I watched England hold out for a draw yet again with just one wicket left against South Africa. That is three times we have pulled off escapes like that since the start of the Ashes last summer. I’m warning you now; England’s luck won’t last forever. 

Lewis Hamilton turns 25 today, so from me, ‘Happy Birthday Lewis’. 🙂 

On this day 400 years ago, Galileo Galilei discovered Jupiter’s four largest Moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Europa & Io. They are some of the largest Moons in the Solar System, with each of them larger than all the Dwarf Planets. In fact Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System with a diameter of 5,278 Km (3,280 miles) making it even larger than the planet Mercury!

In sadder news today, it was announced that on the 4th of January, Tsutomu Yamaguchi died of stomach cancer at the age of 93. You may never have heard of him, but he is the only person to have been officially recognised by the Japanese government as having survived the atomic bombings of both  Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in which over 220,000 people were killed. He was on a business trip to Hiroshima on the 6th of August 1945 and was injured by the bomb, went home to Nagasaki and despite his wounds, returned to work on the 9th of August, the day the city was destroyed.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi

Birthday boy - Hamilton, 25

From top to bottom: Io, Europa, Ganymede & Callisto. Juipter

More Snow!

I had even more snow last night and today, but alas, it was not bad enough to prevent me from going to school. I had a feeling people were getting a bit too hopeful.

The bad weather prevented us from playing Football during our only PE lessons of the week which I wasn’t happy about. We couldn’t even play at lunch time because somebody who shall remain nameless didn’t bother to bring a ball in.

Instead, I and six other sixth formers formed our own élite snowball fighting force, and went around attacking any group of lower years we pleased. Well when they weren’t pushing me over or rugby tackling me to the snow-covered playground floor and kicking snow at me or launching snowballs from point-blank-range. I even got dragged into a sandpit around the back of the playgrounds and dumped there! But I was fine with it; there was no malice in it what so ever. 🙂

If my area gets more snow over night, school may be called off for the day, but can I say that I’m not optimistic? Yes I think I can.

Stay warm, and keep safe.

Let it snow, let it snow and snow!

I got my wish! It snowed overnight and me and my sister didn’t have to go into school for the last day! 🙂

But because some of the main roads had to closed due to snow and accidents, I didn’t get to see my Grandparents. But I’ll defiantly be seeing them next week, so that isn’t so bad.

With our extra day off from school, my sister and I went up the garden with her camera for about 10 minutes and took some pics which you can see below. We also made a couple of videos, but I’m not forking out to be able to put them on.

Our garden from my sister's bedroom window

 

Snow on a garden table

 

In sporting news today, David Beckham will have to go back to Old Trafford, as his loan side AC Milan were drawn against Man Utd in the last 16 of the Champions League. Inter Milan boss Jose Mourinho faces his old team Chelsea in the same round. In the Europa League, Liverpool will play Romanian Champs FC Unirea Urziceni…no me neither. If we win, we will then have to play either Lille of France, or Fenerbahce of Turkey.

Formula 1’s dream come back took another giant leap forward today, with Ferrari confirming that Michael Schumacher has said that he intends to come back and race for Mercedes. In slightly bazaar F1 news, former Japanese driver Ukyo Katayama had to be rescued from Mount Fuji after getting into difficulty. He is said to be fine, but his two companions are feared dead.

Now I hate to have to end on a sad note on such a good day, but I feel that I have to. The infamous ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’, or ‘Work sets you free’ sign above the entrance of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp has been stolen. As a person who has been their twice, and felt the history, the suffering and the death all around me, I find it sick that somebody or some people can have the heart to steal a part of it. My betting is that it was either stolen by Neo-Nazis, a random criminal gang, or some Polish or Jewish people with some twisted logic.

Only dictators destroy, everybody else keeps what is there. Either as a memory, or a warning.