Have you ever seen snow before? In case you haven’t, here are some pictures.
When the Finnish military does operations, the enemy always comes from the east. Nobody is saying that a specific country is that enemy, it just happens to come from that direction. Just like now, when nobody is saying that the horrible weather is a punishment by god for the way Russia treats gay people. Even though we all know it is.
It’s been pretty heavy. Although I’m not sure I agree that it’s been heavier than anyone can remember. Take a look at the snow in 2013, 2009 and 2008, for example.
And, as usual, the country grinds to a halt because that’s more cost-effective than paying for all of the things we would need to carry on.
Whether we really need such as grind is questionable, though. Schools across Yorkshire closed. Venla’s daycare closed. Many offices, including Univar and Sky closed.
But why?
University remained open. I went to all of my lectures and lab sessions. The Edge remained open, too, and all of my exercises classes were still on. I even went swimming thinking I would have a quiet pool and found it just as busy as normal. It feels like an odd parallel world where half the people are panicking and the other half are just getting on with life with absolutely no disruption.
Travelling is one area where the snow can get in the way. But it doesn’t always have to stop you.
I had booked a night away for Elina and me to celebrate her birthday. A lovely country hotel in the Yorkshire Moors. Of course, then this happened.
It should have been an hour and a half’s drive. We set off up the A1, got all the way to the A170, up Sutton Bank and then, just 14 miles from our destination, found the police had closed the road. So, we had to come back down the A19, across to the A64, up the A169 and over the A170 in the other direction.
This turned the entire journey into three and a half hours of driving.
A massive pain in the ass. But we made it, in a little two-wheel drive Astra with regular tyres on.
And if there was any remaining doubt that normal activities can be accomplished during snow, here is Elina and me taking a swim in the outdoor pool.
To be fair, it was a heated pool. The heating wasn’t working properly, so it was colder than it should have been, but still not the frozen block it would have been without the heating.
Oh, while I remember, happy holidays for eight days ago. Have a good one. Here is a picture of some snow:
Photo by Cynthia Yip.
Not selling loose carrots when it snows is actually genius marketing by Sainsbury’s.
Sunday, it snowed. It snowed quite a lot.
Monday, it snowed. That is quite a lot of snow, for us.
I gather the south had it even worse though to be honest, I think this is much of a case of it snows every year in Britain, why aren’t we prepared for it?
Not that I think we were overly unprepared for it up in Leeds, it remains to be seen as to whether we will get a second downfall that will really cripple us but on the whole things managed to keep moving, everyone in our office managed to make it in despite several of them living in the middle of nowhere.
For anyone in urban areas there was no real reason why those who live and work up north could not get to work on Monday. And given the roads were entirely clear by Tuesday there is certainly no reason why anyone would skip work by then.
I went for dinner with my parents on Wednesday. It was going to me with my grandparents as well but you know old people and snow. I mean it’s not like my dad was already at my grans so it wouldn’t have really been much of an effort of that my parents have a Nissan X-Trail designed for rough terrain in any weather 😉 .
But then that just means more chicken for me really so who’s complaining?
