Chaos & Snow

I’m a regular listener to BBC Radio Gloucestershire, and listening to Trevor Fry’s show last night I got the impression that no one really knew what the whether was doing. That’s the trouble with this sort of weather: you either get the media saying its going to be very bad and then its not, or you get the media saying everything will be fine and then its not.

Here in Cirencester, all the main roads were fine: my street was a bit slippery (as I found out when I left for school this morning), but there haven’t really been many problems.

As far as I am aware, of the local schools were open (although there were 80 closed elsewhere in Gloucestershire) and people got on with their daily lives, but still found time to enjoy the snow.

I could see quite a few people in the field behind my house: adults, children, children with parents and dog-walkers all enjoying the snow. Even my cats managed to enjoy it: running around outside trying to catch various falling snow flakes!

There are some times however when I think the reaction to the British weather is a bit stupid. I believe that the reason all transport links stop in snowy wether is that no one knows how to drive  in this weather, unlike drivers in other European countries like Germany, Switzerland or even Greece.

Yes… even Greek drivers know how to drive in the snow. It is a little known fact that there are ski resorts in Greece, and that Greece gets snow most years during the winter – they experience temperatures even colder than we have.

I was listening to a Greek radio station on the Internet last night and the Greeks seem to think it very funny that the UK is at a standstill when Greece kept running when they had worse snow and temperatures over the Christmas period… and the snow in Greece was particularly bad this year, even making it as far South as Crete (while the North of Greece was effected by icy conditions).

On a note about the website, you’ll notice I’ve introduced a proper home page now which links not only to this main site, but also to other pages. I’m hoping to get my Itzehoe Exchange section complete (or nearly complete) by the end of half-term, in 2 weeks time and more sections are still to come.

I’ll write soon: remember we do have a proper comments system now so you can leave your messages, and once they’ve been checked by me they can appear online. You don’t have to sign up.