When I went to my pit
last night I could hear the rain outside, So I’d confidently expected the rain
to have washed all the snow away by the morning. How wrong I was; I came down
and took the puppies out into half an inch of snow. Amazingly for once Morgan
marched right down the garden through the snow to bail out rather than peeing
by the doorstep.
I
dumped two rather damp puppies on top of a sleeping “er indoors TM”,
made toast and had a little look on-line. I was probably up too early for
anything interesting on-line. Those people who were up were either asking about
the state of the roads, or telling everyone they weren’t too bad. I thought
about “pulling a snow day” but decided better of that.
With
pretty much nothing happening on-line I had a little look at the SmartMeter.
Each month I’m paying (near enough) two hundred quid a month for gas and
leccie. That pays for (about) six pounds fifty pence worth a day. Over
the last week we’ve been averaging eight quid a day, and over the weekend when
we had the heating on continually we got through fourteen quid’s’ worth each
day. Up to this morning we’d shifted half the monthly budget (a hundred
quid’s worth) in a third of the month (eleven days). Time to
economise possibly? Mind you when you feature in the government’s sixty quid bung each month, come the
New Year we’ll only be forty quid over budget for the month.
When
the puppies had tiddled this morning I’d dug the long-handled snow scraper out
of the shed, so I got dressed and made a start about half an hour earlier than
I usually do. It didn't take *that* long to scrape the snow from the
car, and I set off through the slush. The pavements were very icy but the roads
round Ashford were quite passable. Mind you it was cold and the car did wobble
on ice a few times. And there were several idiots out on pedal bikes too.
The
motorway was clear, but when I came off the motorway it was obvious that
Maidstone had had more snow than Ashford. I had one or two issues on the road
getting from the motorway to work. The problem was with abandoned cars.
Probably a dozen drivers last night had decided that the conditions were too
bad for them and had abandoned their cars. But that wasn't "abandoned
at the roadside", that was "got out and left them where they
were". And so this morning I and all the other drivers were slaloming
round cars which had been just randomly left in the middle of the road. It has
to be said that the country goes to pieces when it snows, but we in the UK get
pretty much no snow at all compared to some places. Other places that are under
feet of snow for months at a time are geared up for it. Here in the UK we
aren't.
Much
of the talk on this morning's radio talk was about four children who'd fallen through ice whilst playing on a
frozen pond. I suppose this is another example of where we in the UK aren't
used to these conditions?
There
was also talk about the government's COBRA committee meeting today to try to
minimise chaos caused by the upcoming strikes. I can't help but
think that the strikes will be an example of the old adage "a creaking
gate gets oiled"; those that go on strike will get some of what they
are asking for... and those of us that don't will get nothing at all. Again.
There
was also an interview with one of the head honchos of the UK pharmacy industry
who was complaining that UK pharmacies are
struggling
to get prescription medicines for less than the price of a prescription and so
are losing money every time someone comes from the GP with a prescription.
I
got to the works car park at about the usual time I would on an early shift; I
was right to have left home early. There was about three to four inches of snow
in the works car park. I trudged into work and got on with the day. Today I had
a rather odd version of the song "Frosty The Snowman" stuck in
my head. Many years ago four of us used to walk to school together. One of our
number would always sing loudly on the way. His winter song had one verse
repeated ad nauseum:
"Frosty
the Snowman
Lost
his left ball in a fight
Then
by a strange co-incidence
The
same happened to the right"
Hearing
this song every winter’s day for several years whilst plodding through three
miles of ice-cold snow meant that song used to get rather tedious.
By
another strange co-incidence the song's author is now living in Sweden.
Of
the other two who used to walk with us, one is now a minister in the Baptist
church in west country, and the other is now a multi-millionaire. It just goes
to show, doesn't it?
As
I worked I watched the snow melting on the trees outside the window. By home
time much of it had gone, and we had gone past the “pretty” stage of
snow which lasts for about an hour and were (and are) into the “frankly
dangerous” stage of having ice everywhere for about a week. Having nearly
gone arse over tit on the ice on my way to my car as I walked out of work I
thought better about my planned Sainsbury’s mission and came straight home.
I
wrote up a little CPD, had a
look at my
advent calendar, then together with “er indoors TM” cleared
up a rather impressive bout of dog dire rear. Have I even mentioned what foul
creatures dogs are?
“er
indoors TM” went bowling, and as the dogs all slept I slobbed in front
of the telly until I found myself falling asleep.
An early night wouldn’t
hurt…
No comments:
Post a Comment