You may have noticed that here in the UK we have had unusual quantities of snow this year, reducing the southern counties of England to a stand still. There is much debate about whether the authorities should have been better prepared to get us back on the move again with claims from the Federation of Small Businesses that the lack of road clearing, and so on, has cost the country in the region of £3 billion (There was no detail about how the figures were arrived at). My own opinion is that councils can’t be expected to store equipment to deal with a snowfall such as this when it occurs only once every 20 years or so.
I was telling Mavis, aged 9, about cold winters I had known in the past and she asked if I had ever missed school because of snow. (more…)