A Question

I suppose I cannot avoid mentioning it. The cold and snow, that is.

In our part of Essex, we were hit hard by the snow which fell to a depth I can’t recall before. For the first time ever, I had to clear paths through the snow in the back garden to allow our two small dogs to get out of the house rather than have to tunnel through the white stuff. Four times I had to do this.

Like others around the country, our local council only salt and grit the major roads and so it is always a struggle to get out of our road and those leading to the main roads. The result is that we feel somewhat marooned as you see no-one about for days on end. As more folk get adventurous and start driving, the snow on the road becomes compacted and turns to ice. As, indeed, happened this week. If we had the equipment, we could actually skate along our road at this moment. I don’t complain about this, we just accept it as something which happens ever year.

Like most other people, we have put up with the bad weather with stoicism. What else can we do? The central heating has been on twenty-four hours a day all week, but that is the price, literally, we have had to pay to keep warm. The weather experts tell us that we have to face at least another week of cold weather and we are prepared for this.

What I want to know is: If we are in the grips of global warming, why is it so bloody cold?
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Holly Berries

Will we have another severe winter this year? If the dense, red berries on our holly tree in the garden are anything to go by, we will.

Last year was the same. The amount of holly berries on our tree gave warning that it might be and, indeed, it was; it was the hardest winter in 31 years. So, perhaps, there is something about the old wive’s tale after all. Indeed, the Telegraph newspaper this morning confirms that the bountiful supply of berries on the trees this autumn might give warning of another hard winter.

As usual, we will be bringing sprigs of holly into the house as Christmas decorations, a tradition which apparently goes back to pre-Christian times.

We will also be pulling out the snow shovels in readiness!
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Spoilsports!

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The advent of mobile phones that can take photographs and videos can sometimes be a perishing nuisance since they record things that are trivial as well as those that are important.

Take, for example, the man who filmed a couple of police officers having a bit of harmless fun by sledging down a snow-covered hill in Oxford on their riot shields. This fellow then posted his video on YouTube with the result that over 20,000 people viewed this inoffensive diversion [over 160,000 as at 17 January].

Then, inevitably, the officers were identified and spoken to by their area commander who ‘reminded them in no uncertain terms that tobogganing on duty, on police equipment and at taxpayers' expense is a very bad idea should they wish to progress under my command.’

Do us a favour! I’d rather see coppers using their riot shields as sledges than applying them in riots!
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Ice Tragedies

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The snow turned the world into a winter wonderland, but the ice has turned it into a death-trap for some.

We have already heard of young people who have tragically lost their lives falling through ice into the icy water of ponds and lakes after having, foolishly perhaps, thought the ice was stronger than it was.

Youngsters tend to feel they are immortal and some take risks that older people would not. In most cases this is part of the growing up and learning process. In some cases, it is sheer stupidity.

Take, for example, the CCTV footage of children foolishly crossing the frozen Oxford Canal. The police report that some of them, standing on the ice, were even trying to break it by bashing it with their feet! What luck they didn’t succeed.

Just last weekend when walking the dogs, we witnessed a car being repeatedly driven at speed by youths along an ice-covered back lane while other traffic was using the same road, Driving at speed was bad enough, but the car was towing another youth sitting on a plastic sled and this was careering wildly from side to side of the road. The lad could easily have been killed or maimed if the sled had moved in front of an oncoming car, and it was a miracle this didn’t happen.

And then another couple of youths were having a great deal of fun using the same stretch of icy road as a skid-pan and were having a rare old time braking and spinning their van in circles. They were having a great deal of fun, but they were also having it in the path of oncoming traffic.

While other children and youths have been having fun in various ways in the snow, some of those that took risks have tragically paid for it with their lives. One’s heart goes out to their families and friends, but that is little comfort to them now.
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Say Again?

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I can’t say I lay any blame on the government, despite David Cameron’s posturing to the contrary, for the shortage of salt for the nation’s roads during what is clearly an unexpectedly prolonged bout of snow.

Nor, for the most part, do I blame the government for taking control of salt and grit distribution since I imagine, naively perhaps, that there is a master plan somewhere laying out which roads and which areas must be prioritised for these essential items.

In the same spirit, I accept that my part of Essex had to go without salt or grit for the last two days and that, as a result, many bus services had to be suspended because of the treacherous road conditions and folk advised to stay indoors.

But I exclude from this amiable spirit of acceptance the babble of an official from the Local Government Association who announced that, ‘At the moment we have done everything we can do. We are in partnership with the government and we are dealing with the problem of grit shortages.’

What does that mean I wonder?
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Bad Weather. Bad Attitude?

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The country’s obsession with the weather continues with the news that last night was the coldest so far this winter with temperatures in the Highlands plummeting to minus 21 degrees. As usual, schools and businesses have been closed, flights cancelled, trains late, roads not all gritted, people and villages cut off by snow drifts and the whole place at a standstill.

It is said that this spell of cold weather is the worst since 1981, for that also affected much of Europe. This is certainly true for it was this month in that year I saw it at first hand.

I was standing by a ship being refitted in drydock in Bremerhaven where, at the time, it was said by the German weather agency that it had been the coldest winter since the war. There was no doubt of that in my mind because the ships bottom had to be heated by braziers set up in the base of the drydock so as to keep the ship’s plumbing warm; an unusual and awesome sight. Since there was limited heating on board, conditions were also pretty grim.

What impressed me, however, was the way in which the Germans just got on with life. All of the roads were gritted and even the cycle paths and pavements as well. Schools and businesses kept open, trains and buses ran regardless and only Frankfurt airport closed down for a while.

I wanted to get home that particular weekend and took a taxi from Frankfurt Airport to the railway station where I stood on a crowded train that took me to Dusseldorf. Here I caught a flight to my local airport and was back in the comfort of my home not long afterwards.

The apparent ease with the way northern and Scandinavian countries get on with life in poor weather conditions is well known and, over the years, I’ve witnessed this many times as well as in the Californian mountains and in Alaska. Of course, it has to be borne in mind that poor weather is an annual factor in northern climes. Yet, at the same time, we also have this same problem every year.

The experience in 1981 confirmed what my father had told me years before, which was that you can do pretty much anything if you put your mind to it. So, for example, I can’t remember my school closing because of bad weather for masters and pupils did what they had to do to get in. I expect working folk did the same. Indeed, on the few occasions that smog bought London’s transport system to a standstill, my father and I walked to and from work.

Many of the schools in my area closed yesterday and many parents were forced to stay at home to look after their children. The local radio reported that some folk couldn’t get to work and, maybe, there were good reasons for this in many cases. However, I do wonder whether we have bred a generation of people that simply can’t be bothered to get to work or school if a walk of more than a couple of hundred yards in poor weather is involved.

But please don’t trouble to send me your thoughts as I think I already know the answer!
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Funny ‘ain’t it?

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Britain is a great country to live in and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But in some respects we are unprepared for, or maybe ignore, what Mother Nature throws at us.

High winds bring down the leaves in autumn and the railways slither to a halt. In winter the entire country comes to a standstill at the slightest snowfall. In summer any temperature over thirty degrees and the newspapers immediately shout ‘Phew! What a Scorcher!’, and the government bombards us with ways of keeping cool. We are currently enjoying good weather but I wonder how long it will be before the water companies, who are wasting millions of gallons of water every year, tell us that a drought is on its way.

Of course, we are not geared up to handle extremes of weather and there are sound economic reasons for this. We can’t expect the authorities, for example, to stock up on enough snowploughs to clear every single road in the country.

But I do wonder sometimes why it is that speculators are allowed to build houses on known flood plains and not be penalised when those houses are flooded.

Or why the water companies cannot get together and build pipelines to move water from the watery north to the needy south. The Romans managed it and, after all, so do the oil companies!

Funny ‘ain’t it?

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