Perspective Series: Tooba in Wonderland

January 2019 was the 1st time I had seen proper snowfall in the breathtakingly beautiful countryside of Britain, Midsomer Norton, Somerset and what a snowfall it was! Imagine a city girl from Karachi, where winter rarely ever comes to knock for a week or so, seeing real snowflakes; I really cannot describe that feeling of awe. But wait, it’s not all a romantic fairytale. Let’s go back a few hours.

I had a few hours to spare after my last work appointment of the day and I was all caught up with my team back home, so I decided to follow through the advice of my colleagues there and went about to explore the gorgeous city of Bath Spa. After a splendid tour of the Roman Baths and Bath Abbey, around 5:30 in the evening I was window shopping in Benefit Cosmetics Beauty Bar when I heard a couple of women talking about the weather forecast that predicted snow in the area. It came as a surprise as there was no indication of snow that morning as such. Even after that, I thought its ok, it’s just snow, how bad could it be and continued to walk around the old town. Little did I know! 15 minutes later I saw the bus station literally getting packed with the locals and all alarm bells started to ring at once in my head. I increased my pace instinctively and walked to the bus station and waited for my bus to come. Until this point, honestly, the weather seemed pretty much normal for the hour based on my experience of whole 2 days in the United Kingdom. Anyhow, I was able to get on the 6:00pm bus (if my memory serves). 15 minutes into the bus ride and all hell started to break loose in my head as I could literally hear the wind howling despite the shut windows of the bus. And just when panic may have set in, I saw beautiful white flakes appearing from the sky; and for some reason, it calmed my nerves. I reached my stop in the next 15-20 minutes and when I got off, it was literally difficult to put one foot in front of the other because of the wind pressure. After what seemed like ages (actually maybe 10 minutes or so), I saw the familiar sight of the hotel building where I was staying. To my utter surprise, when I went in the lady at the reception was genuinely relieved to see me and was like we were about to call you as you are only visiting and this weather has come as a surprise to us as well. I thanked my stars that I had reached back just in time, else I even shudder to think where I would have been stranded as I did not have internet working on my mobile as well. In my excitement, I called home to tell my parents about the snow, then cleared up some more emails and when I looked outside after an hour, the parking and golf course of the hotel literally looked like a winter wonderland. I changed and went out for dinner in the hotel’s restaurant and it was perhaps one of the most beautiful almost solitary meals I have had. Post dinner, I remember spending hours standing just outside the hotel reception and watching the snowfall. It was enchanting, when I look back it seems like I was caught in a spell and to-date those few hours seem more like something I had conjured up as a result of my wild imagination. When the snowing did not slow down till 9:00 pm, I reached out to people back home to inform about the change in my plans for the next day as I was supposed to travel to another city early morning.

The next day I waited till about 9:30 in the morning when to me it appeared that the snowfall had slowed down and then tried to leave Midsomer Norton. To be clear, I wasn’t trying to be adventurous but practical. I was booked to stay the night in London before my flight back home to Karachi the next day. When I went to check out, the lady at the reception asked me to reconsider, when she saw I had made up my mind, she let go. I dragged my suitcase all the way to the bus stop in the snow in the hopes of catching the 10am bus as it was the only bus leaving for Bath that morning from where I was supposed to catch the train to London. 10am became 10:30, then 11 and I stubbornly stood at the stop willing that bus to come. After an hour of freezing in the snow, I had no choice but to return to the hotel. The reception staff by now obvious knew who I was, the crazy girl who decided to check out in the middle of a snowstorm. The girl kindly offered me the same room I had and I grabbed at it with both hands kissing my thoroughly planned personal night stay in London goodbye. My youngest brother gave me the talk of his life on my seemingly rash behaviour to try and leave the safety of the hotel in a new place in such treacherous weather conditions. Morning turned to afternoon, and the chef was kind enough to cook whatever I wanted as I was among the only few people staying with them by that time and the only visitor to the UK. I am sure it was the best fish n chips I had ever had till then. After lunch, rather than going back to my room to sulk alone, I decided to do something totally out of character for me and played the afternoon away with the children of a hotel employee. If I have to pick one thing that grounded me that day, it was the optimism of those two beautiful kids who welcomed me like an old friend. In the evening, the snowfall finally stopped for good and things begin to normalize but there was no point to leave so close to dark especially with the prediction of rain in London. To put things in perspective, the snowing started in the evening on Jan 31st at around 5:30 with light showers which gradually over the next couple of hours turned into a full-fledged snow storm that lasted till 4 in the evening next day. I was told that it was the first of kind snowstorm that they have seen in the longest time and it was dubbed as the worst in that part of the UK in the recorded history. I slept through the night there and started my journey back the next morning.

For me, what started off as a truly beautiful event turned bleak rather quickly because I was forced to cancel my travel plans of the next 2 days as bus & taxi services to the main city were suspended. The scenery was out of a dream, arguably amongst the most beautiful I had ever seen but the feeling that I cannot get out of a place at a time of my choice especially being completely alone wasn’t something I would like to go through again. It wasn’t that I felt unsafe or anything but it was agitating none the less. I realized later that above everything it was the feeling of not being in control that was problematic for me. It made me feel helpless and for some reason just increased the uncertainty. But what I learned from that experience was how to overcome these feelings. First and foremost, it wasn’t rational of me, logically I knew it was temporary but the nagging at the back of my head was plain stupid. So I learnt that in times like these if you can distract yourself with whatever works for you, you get through! For me it was forcing myself to think that it’s ok, I am fine and that this will be over soon. Also, interacting with the few people who were snowed in with me at the hotel, playing with kids, talking to my family back home and working normalized things for me. Will I ever want to be in such a situation again? Not really. But will I be okay if I am? 100% yes. Because that is how life works, we are never in complete control and that’s the beauty of it.

Cheers!

Tooba Tanveer