Wednesday 1 December 2010

On Winter And Falling On Ice.

Do you love winter? Are you a snow worshipper? Well I'm feeling a bit undecided at the moment. Until last night I'd have had no hesitation in saying that I love snow, there's nothing quite like sinking down into a few inches of fresh deep snow, the crunching noise it makes and the the potential for snowball fights in the garden.

Winter Wonderland? Photo by Dan
But that was before yesterday, or yesterday afternoon to be precise. You see although we've had a bit of snow here, we haven't got the drifts which are covering so much of the rest of the country - what we do have however, is ice - compacted, shiny, rock hard and as lethal as you can imagine - ICE.

I went out to meet a daughter from school yesterday and managed to go from vertical to horizontal in a split second. I was lucky, nothing broken, although how I'm not sure. What I do know is that I now have  a huge swelling on one hip, with the promise of a bruise from hell to come out in a day or two.

Now I can just about start to laugh about it. After all, I'm still in one piece, not laid up in hospital in plaster. But I'm an ordinary middle-aged woman, fit enough to get around without a stick. How on earth are the poor old dears who inhabit most of the town supposed to get about?

I've been listening to so much whining on the radio about keeping the roads clear - of course it's important and annoying when things grind to a halt, and yes, people in Scandinavia manage to cope with far more difficult conditions than this every year, but my point is simply this; why doesn't the council attempt to clear the pavements?

Forgive me if I'm beginning to sound like my - or your - mother, but I don't remember it being this bad when I was younger. I lived in Yorkshire for ten years and I don't think I missed one day's work, despite enormous amounts of snow. Now I feel practically housebound because I know that thirty feet from the house I have the option to ice-skate along the pavements or take my life in my hands and join the cars on  the road.

I think the biggest problem is the fact that we haven't had enough snow. We've had just enough to compact and freeze over to form a nightmarish glassy surface, but not sufficient to give us any kind of grip. If we'd had a few more inches, at least we'd have had that reassuring crunch to get our wellies into.

So, do I still love snow? Well yes, I guess I still do, I just wish we could have it in a decent quantity and that as soon as we've had our fun, the sun would come out and melt it all away. Wishful thinking? Of course, but I think from now on I'm always going to look at it from a slightly different perspective and consider what it means for those who're not as fleet of foot as they once were.

1 comment:

  1. Ahh, pavements. Good point, I took my girls out this morning in their buggy on the road as we couldn't see the pavement. We have had an unusual fall of over a foot adn we're so not used to it here.
    If you'd like to link up again it's today through till Sunday, hope to see you there.

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