weather stories

It seems we were incredibly lucky with the weather in Oxford yesterday. Yes, I know it rained and yes Iknow it was pretty miserable for the end of June, but if you look at what it was like around the rest of the country I guess we should be thankful.









Thinking about weather in general made me think about one winter in Istanbul when it snowed really heavily several times over a period of about 3 weeks. At the time I was living on the Asian side of the city and working on the European side out near the airport. It was quite a distance but the journey was relatively easy as there was a catamaran which did the crossing in about 30 minutes - but it only ran if the weather was OK!
Otherwise I had to get a ferry across to the other side and then take a train - a journey of about an hour - or take 2 buses - again about an hour and the buses didn't run as frequently as the ferries or trains. One particular morning it had snowed really heavily in the night and was also rather foggy. This meant that the catamaran wasn't running and neither were the ferries. And also not a bus to be seen! And of course it was a morning when I was teahing at 9 o'clock and really had to get into school. Luckily for me, there were 2 other people heading for the same catamaran and we went together in search of a taxi - rather expensive maybe but at least there were 3 of us. Then of course the taxi driver had no change, and neither did I. All I had was a 50 million lira note (about £20). But this couple were so kind. They paid my taxi fare, took my school address and said they would drop in for the money but they never did. So I got a free ride to school and met some really nice people.

I'm sure you all have stories about things that happened to you because of the weather. Maybe at home or maybe in England. It would be nice to see some of those stories on this blog. I look forward to reading some of them.