Snow More For The Time Being…

…So here’s the flip side of being caught out by unusual wintry conditions - the kids loved it; loved it the way I loved it when I was a youngster seventy years ago…  And so did parents who couldn’t get to work – unless they were so desperate to keep their jobs that they hoofed it for miles to get to their offices or factories.

No, there was great and unfamiliar family enjoyment going on as parents and kids rolled their massive snowballs in preparation for the construction of the ineviteable snowmen that appeared in hundreds of gardens and waste ground all over the country.

What a change it was from the paltry couple of inches we have been having over the last few years…!

  I speak mainly of the shortage of the icy whiteness that city folk have been starved of for many years.  They say it has been eighteen years since we had downfalls like this one, and I have even heard further comparisons going back thirty years!

I have no doubt that some folk have run into a great deal of snarling-up trouble – the Scots, for instance, and West Country people, who, in spite of their serene and beautiful summer countryside, always seem to have great problems when the winter arrives.

But, on the other hand, in all probability, the Scots and the West Country, have, over the “lean” years, been enjoying  a  little more in the way of  snowfalls than we have , here in the Midlands.

And some people have been lapping it up…   Kids heading for the nearest slopes with Dad hoisting the toboggan to the top of the slope and joining the kids in the slippery run to the bottom, icy winds pinking their cheeks. 

But now it’s going.  Well, I think it is…  Mind you, the weather forecasters have told us this two or three times over the last week or two – but it all came back, and the kids hailed another day of school closures; and Dad hailed another day away from the office; and we old ‘uns hailed the supermarkets’ delivery facilities, summoned straight from our computers in the cosy warmth of our sheltering homes.

A few days ago I was moaning about the intrinsic British lack of preparation for the recent onslaught of wintry conditions.  But – Hey! Ho! for the Flip Side of it all…

“Well, Whaddya Know. It’s SNOW…!

Arctic Garden

You have to laugh, though.  Who does?  Why, you lot out there, who are reading about the UK’s “worst attack of winter snowfalls for eighteen years…”   Some of you – especially those of you in the States – have  a great deal more than we are experiencing at the moment, every year of your lives.  But does your country almost come to a halt?

Are your trains cancelled because the ” wrong kind of snow” is settling on the track? 

Are your airport runways not cleared sufficiently fast for planes to land, so flights have to be cancelled before take-off from (say) Singapore, Canada, America, China, etc., etc. 

 Does your domestic production trickle to a stop as workers are forced to stay at home because they can’t get their cars out of their drives?  Or, if they can, they can’t drive along the street because of ungritted road surfaces…?

We must be the laughing stock of the world.  Of course we are.  You know why?  It’s because of the inbred question that ejaculates from the mouths of this country’s administrators whenever an “unusual” action should be taken – “How much will it cost…?”

And if it is going to cost too much (in their opinion) it’s a case of “up yours” to the suffering British public, some of whom – desperate to hang on to disappearing jobs – struggle along the icy, snow-bound, uncleared pavements, trying to get to work.

We are just not geared up to cope with a lot of the national “emergencies” that come along from time to time.  And the reason we are not geared up seems to be that our tribulations don’t come along often enough to justify the expense.  I mean, it’s been eighteen years since we had snowfalls like this, hasn’t it?!  Why pay out lots of money for gearing  up -” just in case” when it’s unlikely to happen next year…!

But what about the cost of lost business as a result of planes not being able to take British businessmen abroad?; or the cost of  overtime payment to, for instance, AA patrolmen trying to get through blizzards to vehicles that have given up, having become become snarled up in the wintry conditions?; or the extra ambulances being called out to take care of pedestrians who have fallen and need hospital treatment?

Apart from all this, what I am trying to understand is why the scientists are going on about the planet warming up, when we in the UK are now in the throes of a mini ice-age…!