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Wednesday January 04, 2006

Snow!

Slightly out of date, but I have a household rule that work PC's are switched off over the holidays, along with mobile phones and any other communication routes...

Whinge of the week is therefore whinge from last week... snow!

Now, you really have to live in the UK to understand our peculiar attitude to snow in this country. We have a strange love/hate relationship with it.

We love it because it's (relatively) rare, looks pretty, you can have fun, there's often a day or two off work/school etc..

We hate it because it obliterates our transport system in minutes, is unpredictable, melt and freezes making things treacherous and we're just not set up to cope with it here.

Me? I love the stuff. I live in East Kent, which is a slightly peculiar part of the UK in that it is the most south east point of this green land and, you would have thought, largely immune to snow. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your outlook) due to the nature of the terrain and the exposed northern coast we often get a curious Siberian wind from the northeast, which blows across the north sea, sucks up loads of moisture and then dumps it on us as snow, leaving the rest of the UK wondering what the fuss is all about. By contrast, we all tend to get the hottest temperatures in the summer too. (The highest temperature ever recorded in the UK was recorded in Kent.)

The results? 4 days effectively snowed in over the Christmas break. Not much of a hardship really! This is what we woke up to on the morning of the 27th. 10 Inches of snow and -6 degrees celsius - what my Dad used to call "Frosty 'round the Grampians" ;-)....

My 4WD Audi was about as much use as a chocolate teapot in this because there is a layer of sheet ice under the snow here, and there is a sharp tilt on the driveway which doesn't show up well in the photo. I gave up after almost hitting the neighbours car after 15 mins of sliding around, so we went for a walk instead...

My two boys and I (Joshua on my shoulders, and Mark) enjoying a 'Winter Wonderland' in the local woods! Priceless!

( Jan 04 2006, 05:16:42 PM GMT / Jan 04 2006, 05:06:57 PM GMT ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/snow

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