Cathy Kelly

Newsletter Feature: The New Book and the Snow

Posted on 28 Jan 2010

I am trying to finish (no, this isn’t déjà vu, I have said this before) my twelfth novel. 

It's been a bit sloooow. It's all the fault of the snow. Yes, news alert: it snowed in Ireland. We're not good with snow in Ireland. Well, we're not used to it. We love the concept of two days of making snow angels and using dustbin lids to toboggan, but then it palls and we all realize that nobody can drive on the snow, we’re all stuck at home and it's cold. (I wear socks in bed in warm weather. (I had to buy thermal socks this winter.) Many conversations verge around whether your car is rear wheel drive or front wheel drive. Trust me, this isn't my area of expertise, but since the last big snow, I know my car is front wheel drive. I was in Finland a couple of years ago on a book tour and it was so amazing to see the whole country running smoothly with a foot of snow on the ground. I was in awe. People even run in shorts outside when it’s minus ten. I didn't try this but I did try a thing called Avanto, which is where you get into an ice hole and submerge yourself in freezing water for a minute before running, shrieking, into a sauna afte rwards. None of the lovely Finnish people shrieked but I did.It has to be said, this certainly wakes you up in the morning. Gorgeous Deirdre in Calgary tells me that in her children's school, they only get to play inside at playtime if it gets below -20 degrees. I tell you, I am a wuss when it comes to snow and cold. If it ever got to minus twenty here, I would be sitting on the radiator wearing all my thermals simultaneously.