Snow Excuse

The worst thing is to be caught totally unprepared for anything. Especially the weather.

There can actually be no excuse for being caught with the proverbial leg covering garments down around the ankles, bits of free range hen produce on our faces or just being left high, dry and helpless.

This is because of the undeniable fact that there is a vast amount of information available at our fingertips to give early or advanced warning about such phenomena as adverse weather,power cuts,  food shortages, petrol tanker drivers industrial action and even through to what is the 'must have', and totally 'in' toy for Christmas.

Being of a certain age I find weather quite interesting.

I will intentionally linger around the morning TV broadcasts before going to work, channel hopping in order to see a definitive forecast for the day, and hopefully for the forthcoming days. I have, usually no specific or special plans that would cause to be shelved by precipitation, storm winds or a heat wave but such things are nice to know.

Invariably the foretelling of wet or dry spells, high or low pressure are at odds to the actual weather experienced in the proceeding period  but I still find myself drawn towards a good 5 day forecast. 

I am well prepared for the standard English seasons if they perform to type but this has not at all been the case in recent years. Damn you Global warming.

We have had drought inducing spring, very wet summers, a very late and protracted autumn and , so far this year, quite a mild and reasonable winter. There are of course local and regional variations and exceptions and I am sympathetic to those who in the last two days have been flooded out, battered by hurricane force gales and lost bits of their gardens to landslip.

Currently, I am trying to seek the general consensus on what to expect over the period of late November 2012 to January 2013 in terms of climate. (Assuming that the Mayan prediction of the end of the world around 21st December is woefully incorrect) .My hanging seaweed and sensitive garden foliage are not being very helpful in providing hints and indicators of what to expect. I missed the actual day that our resident Swift family vacated the soffit nest site and so cannot say in what direction , as a portent of approaching weather ,they went.

The nearest but not necessarily reliable fortune teller source comes from my local Tesco Express. It has stockpiled handy sized bags of table salt available in the external lockers between leftover soggy disposable summer barbecues and the solid fuel requisitions.

Why table salt and not gritting salt?

I have not been able to extract any answers from the shop staff either because they i) do not know  ii) do not care or iii) they have signed a gagging order from Central Tesco Command not to enter into any speculative conversation with consumers because of the criminally exploitative level of mark up and profit in selling a cheap commodity subsequently marketed as an essential and potentially life saving product.

The big freeze of 2010 was something for which we, as a Nation, found ourselves wholly at the mercy of. The severity and duration of the great chill paralysed the activities and livelihoods of our society and economy for many weeks much to the amusement and consternation of our Northern European neighbours who just glided gracefully and competently by in their de-misted, heated seat, snow chain tyred cars into territory that even a common or garden UK heavy duty 4 x 4 fashion mobile could not contemplate.

I spent a good part of that time, certainly a  few working days digging my car out from my driveway, on the roadside if having parked up or got stuck and from the office car park. The remainder of the period was in helping others, remarkably even less prepared than me, in similar embarassing situations.

I did learn a sober lesson from that feeling of complete and utter helplessness at the icy hands of nature and to over compensate, as always a British character trait, I have, well after the event, maintained snow and freezing weather kit and provisions in the car. I find that I have to justify this level of expeditionary supplies on a regular basis to those who remark about how heavily weighed down the boot on my car now looks. I have not, as yet, been stopped and searched by the Police on suspicion of carting around a body or the main part of a church porch lead roof covering. How unreassuring is that to a council tax contributor to the budget of the local force?

One major lapse, and for which I may pay dearly come the really adverse weather, was my succumbing to a nagging temptation and eating the Kendal Mint Cake bar on the hottest day of the year in August. Still, that did result in some levelling up of the rear suspension and a noticeable improvement in fuel consumption and the performance and life expectancy of my Continental Snow Tyres.