Mulled Wine & London Blanketed With Snow!
It was Sunday and I spent most of my time cooking and relaxing at home. It was broadcasted that snowstorms from Russia were expected to hit the eastern part of England on Sunday night. Oh well, it was probably not true and would just tiny bit snow that would melt after a few hours!
To my surprise, it snowed quite heavily at 5pm-ish. It was the coldest year in 13 years! Within minutes, the ground was covered with snow. Everywhere looked so white! At one point, the visibility was so bad that we couldn’t see Canary Wharf (during good day, it’s visible from our balcony). Then, there were snow storms! I saw this for the first time of my life! Ever since I have been in London, I haven’t experienced any like this before! The snow flakes were getting bigger and bigger every time when I checked!
I was tempted to go out. We went out finally and checked out our area. It was like a ghost town with no habitants, just so not like usual! I played in the snow for a bit and I was reluctant to go home. I wanted to take some pictures! Finally, I decided to leave that for the next day, hoping that the snow would stay when I woke up.
It was Sunday and I spent most of my time cooking and relaxing at home. It was broadcasted that snowstorms from Russia were expected to hit the eastern part of England on Sunday night. Oh well, it was probably not true and would just tiny bit snow that would melt after a few hours!
To my surprise, it snowed quite heavily at 5pm-ish. It was the coldest year in 13 years! Within minutes, the ground was covered with snow. Everywhere looked so white! At one point, the visibility was so bad that we couldn’t see Canary Wharf (during good day, it’s visible from our balcony). Then, there were snow storms! I saw this for the first time of my life! Ever since I have been in London, I haven’t experienced any like this before! The snow flakes were getting bigger and bigger every time when I checked!
I was tempted to go out. We went out finally and checked out our area. It was like a ghost town with no habitants, just so not like usual! I played in the snow for a bit and I was reluctant to go home. I wanted to take some pictures! Finally, I decided to leave that for the next day, hoping that the snow would stay when I woke up.
It snowed and it stopped. Then, it started to snow again. That was just great news for me. I love it! It looked just so pretty from any angles! It was so surreal! I think I was just like a kid, got so excited and couldn’t help to look out from the window to see if it was still snowing. I prayed so hard that it would continue to snow. I woke up in the middle of the night – not on purpose but I had to go to the loo. I couldn’t resist but looked out from the window.. So, it had snowed again when I was in my dreamland…I couldn’t sleep! I didn’t know why I got so excited with the snow!
My alarm went off. Darn! I had to get up. I wanted to snuggle under the duvet and wished that it was Sunday! I took me 10 minutes to be officially out of the bed. First thing I did was to pull up the blind and checked the situation outside! Wow, it was more than enough to build snowmen!!
Without wasting much time, I took my camera and started to shoot the beautiful scenes from the balcony. It was cold but that didn’t deter me from taking photos! Ok, I had to make sure that I was wrapped up warmly. I didn’t have a pair of proper footwear that I could put on. So, I had to bring an extra pair to change at work.
The roads were completely covered with snow. I had never seen our area like this before. I started to take photos as we walked to work. City of London in white? How nice! I just couldn’t resist and kept snapping away. I was very happy. The snow turned me insane!
I don’t want to see the snow starts melting. I want it to snow throughout the week. When I was typing this, it was still snowing. Russia, please bring more snow!
After all the excitement, I thought I want to share with you guys a winter drink. Mulled wine, variations of which are popular around the world, is wine, usually red, combined with spices and typically served warm. In the old times, wine often went bad. By adding spices and honey, it could be made drinkable again. Glögg is the Nordic form of mulled wine, similar to Glühwein in German-speaking countries or Vin Chaud in French.
Mulled wine or Vin Chaud is usually prepared from red wine, heated and spiced with cinnamon sticks, cloves, citrus and sugar.
While the weather yet again reminded me we are still in winter, after a day of chaos all over South of England, Vin Chaud or Mulled Wine would be a perfect drink to have! It makes me feels that I am on winter holiday, with my ski wears!
Mulled Wine/ Vin Chaud
Prep Time:
20 minutes
Cook Time:
30 minutes
Yield:
4 servings
Ingredients:
For the Mulled Wine/ Vin Chaud:
1/2 lemon
2 clementines
1l red wine (Bourgogne, Côtes du Rhône)
190g fine sugar
2 cinnamon
2 star anise
2 cloves
100ml water
Method:
Cut lemon and clementines and put in a saucepan. Pour in the wine, water sugar and the spices. Then, boil for 4 minutes on low to medium heat. Strain and serve in glasses.
