Sunday night and all day Monday it was snowing in London, and most of southeast England. We had about 6 inches all told, with temperatures below freezing most of Sunday night and Monday. According to the Met Office, this was the worst snowstorm in 18 years here in England.
Now, in Marblehead, or New York, or Chicago, such a snowfall would be a piddling hiccup in the life of those who live there. The snowplows would be out, the sanders would be sanding, and everyone would (mostly) get to work. But here in London? No chance!
Here’s our back garden on Monday.
Note the lavender bush on the lower left-hand corner. “What lavender bush?” you ask? It’s there, just under the snow.
In the upper middle of the picture, there is a small space between a large bush and our fence. That’s where we saw the urban fox on Sunday, sheltering under the bush and then climbing over the fence into the alley next to the church.
HWMBO was delighted at the storm–it’s the largest snowfall he’s ever seen. He did feel a bit guilty at staying home from work.
I am of two minds about all this. On the one hand, lots of people get the day off from work–HWMBO certainly did. The schools were closed, public transport pretty much packed up except for the two Underground lines that are just that: entirely underground (Victoria and Waterloo and City lines, if you must know…), the buses not running, and lots of children throwing snowballs. On the other hand, I have a bad cold, I didn’t want to venture out because of the danger of falling down, we were running out of milk, bread, and dinner makings, and I had enough of snow in the United States.
In addition, the public bodies responsible for keeping the roads clear were and are not prepared for such a heavy snowfall. Plows (or ploughs)? Where would we put the snow? (Just pile it beside the road and dig out the crossings, that’s where!) Gritters (=US sanders)? We may run out of grit if this keeps up. My landlord (a housing association) has not, up until Tuesday noon, bothered to grit or plow the parking lot outside the building. It will be a skating rink tonight when the water freezes.
So what should they do? As Ken Livingstone (former Mayor of London) said, the buses continued to run even during the Blitz in the Second World War. Why should a little snowfall stop them? Boris Johnson, the current Mayor of London, recommended that everyone walk or bike to work (apparently Boris, a famous biker, did just that). Have a bit of fun. To be fair, he did suspend the congestion charge yesterday, for those hardy few who made it in. The fact of the matter is that as this happens only once every 15 to 20 years, there is no mileage in having crews ready around the clock all winter every winter, just in case it happens again. So the Mayor is blaming the boroughs, the boroughs are blaming the Mayor and Westminster, the Brown administration is in hiding, and estimates are that
I did wonder if those shrubs can survive snow cover, and was informed that they do! It’s frost that kills them.
Haha I like the “Brown administration” – it’s the first time I’ve heard it refered like that. (Some might call it the Brown mal-adminstration)Gordon Brown apologised for the bad weather to the Chinese Minister Wen. – never mind the people waiting in vain for the buses in the blizzard (Now, pity the show didn’t hit Wen!)
well, is it worth
I suspect people would find other uses for the money, and take the hit of a closed day when it happens.
You would think so, but there is a lot of bleating going on today about (for example) schools being closed for two days in a row. Businesses are complaining that people are skiving off rather than trying to get into work, both yesterday and today. There was little or no public transport yesterday, so coming into London was not something that most commuters could do. But that didn’t save the businessmen and women from complaining about lazy loafers who wouldn’t trudge through miles of snow to get to their dead-end jobs…
There was just an item on Radio 4 about a couple who got married in Huddersfield yesterday. The bride went home to get out of her wedding dress and return to start the honeymoon. She was marooned at home by the snow so the groom sat all night twiddling his thumbs at the reception hall rather than going on his honeymoon.
Wow!
With the Christmas/New Year’s snowfall in the entire Puget Sound region and other places (Las Vegas’s 3″ snowfall during in December/January), this seems to be the season for snowfall in areas that usually don’t get much snowfall. I bought a snow shovel 2-3 weeks after the snow melted in the area.
This was not like western New York in winter. Then again, I don’t miss the 4″ to 7″ winter season accumulations in and around the Finger Lakes region of New York.
I both do and do not recognize that scene.
I suppose it makes sense that London doesn’t havbe lots of snow-removal equipment, but I find it really strange that the Tube was shut down.
The surface lines ice up really quickly. Only two Underground lines do not have any surface stations (Victoria Line and Waterloo and City Line). Thus, lots of the surface lines were impassable. The Bakerloo line, for example, comes out at Queens Park. Thus, the line from Queens Park to Harrow and Wealdstone was out of action as it was iced up.
Hot toddies, minus the lemon, are about the only supplies I’m not running low on. I think I’ve gone through half that jar of honey you guys gave me just in the past couple of days.
I understand what you’re saying, and don’t doubt the accuracy of your reportage, but wonder why. The Toronto subway has outdoor sections, and no subway cars have snowploughs on the front of them, and they nearly always manage in the snow we get all the time in winter. It’s only in bad freezing rain situations that the outside bits are closed – and that’s remarkable, once every 5-8yrs
still, enjoy it. anomalies make for variety.
Well, again, it’s very likely that Trawna will get lots of ice and snow each year. Thus, money spent on providing protection for the transit lines from ice and snow is money well spent indeed.
Here in London, where we get such a snowstorm once every couple of decades or so, money spent on preparing for a heavy snow or ice storm would be seen as money wasted, and the newspapers would be baying for the blood of whichever hapless functionary ordered that money to be spent.
Thus, every couple of decades, when we do get a heavy snow or ice storm, the newspapers are baying for the blood of whichever hapless functionary who did not spend money to ensure that the transport network worked well during said storm.
You can’t win. Neither of us braved the transport network yesterday. HWMBO used the Underground today and said it was OK. I saw a few buses when I ventured out to buy the newspaper and some supplies. They seemed to be trundling along as they normally do, with the addition of a layer of snow on their roofs/rooves.
I was also surprised at the total breakdown of the Tube. The noises coming from TfL gave me the impression they *had* “de-icing equipment” but had to get it out of storage first, and then had to sloooowly run it along all tracks one by one. Trawna presumably has a small flotilla of de-icers on tap.
On my team, one was sick on Mon (he got caught out by the “near-blizzard conditions” on Sun night), one was stuck in the sticks in the far West, with his laptop in the office (I ended up sending him to an online ITIL training course we all are behind on), one came in from Marylebone once the Piccadilly line had resumed core service. Tue we were good (except for the one down with flu).
Our Trawna colleagues, of course, reacted to my note that we were a bit short-staffed with a singular lack of sympathy. (Not that we needed help. I think the only support call we got from the UK was from someone trying to work from home and needing to be reminded of our URL.)
Also, financial losses my arse — I think that snow did WONDERS for parent-child relations in England. I had to dodge THREE snowball fights and saw entire armies of snowpeople in construction.