Brrrrrrr! It's Cold Outside

Well, I have been silent for 3 weeks but now I can get back to looking at the world. After the floods in Cumbria in October and November, we now have the freeze up. The whole of Britain from Lands End to John O'Groats is buried in snow. Night temperatures are plunging to record lows - last night managed -22.3C in the Highlands - and day-time temperatures only creep above 0C with difficulty. The weather men see no let-up just yet and temperatures could go even lower. Two nights ago, even Oxfordshire saw a low of -20C. Airports are closed, roads blocked and railways are disrupted - although the Southern area with its 3rd rail electrics is coping better than I would have expected. There is snow everywhere in the northern hemisphere from London to Vladivostok and from London to Vancouver. The extreme conditions are encouraging the global warming sceptics to gather strength - confusing weather with climate. In Britain this is officially the worst winter since 1981 and in my own experience is the worst since 1962/63. Then we were better able to deal with it. The most striking thing about this cold spell is the speed with which they have closed the schools. Everywhere hundreds and thousands of schools are closed and likely to stay so until ............ when? In my school days, I cannot ever remember the schools closing. Of course, then we walked to school or went on the bus. The buses would get through on the main roads and we would walk from home to the bus stops. Very few families had cars and the idea of being ferried to school in a Chelsea tractor by a mum desperate to get to the job that provided the extra income that allowed the family to have 2 cars, one of which was the said tank thing, would have been laughable. And local authorities gritted the roads more quickly and, more importantly, they also gritted the side roads so that everywhere was passable. Now it seems that we have to accept that nothing will be done to grit either side roads or pavements. This brings us to the nonsense of H & S. Schools are closed and no side roads are gritted because the local authorities will not accept any responsibility for any accidents. If there is ice and snow on the ground, people will fall over - and that should be an end of it. I think I could make an equally strong case against local authorities for denying me my human right to go out every day without risk - and this is a result of un-gritted side roads, etc.

More cold and snow is expected over the next few days and there is no sign at all of a thaw.
So, as Winston Churchill advised during the dark days of WWII, we must KBO - Keep Buggering On!

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