Snowed Under

Because I'm British, I obviously like to talk about the weather.  Which means that today, well, there's no avoiding the topic of snow.  Here in Crapchester it has been steadily snowing for more than twenty four hours and, as ever, the local authorities seem to have been caught by surprise.  Again.  Roads are virtually impassable due to uncleared snow and public transport has ground to a halt.  Even where roads have been cleared, they have subsequently been blocked by abandoned or crashed vehicles.  To be fair, they did have the gritters and ploughs out this morning to clear the roads, but it didn't seem to occur to anyone that if it kept snowing, then the roads would quickly become covered in snow again, undoing all the earlier work.  The overall effect on Crapchester has been to bring everything to a halt: roads are gridlocked, car parks deserted because the entrances and exits are inaccessible due to snow (Plus everyone is stuck in traffic anyway) and half of the shops in the town centre closed early.

It's the same every time we have heavy snowfall: an apparent unpreparedness on the part of the authorities, regardless of the amount of warning they've received.  Of course, the usual response to such criticisms is that snowfall this heavy is a rare event in the south of England.  Except that, with global warming, it isn't.  Thanks to climate change, I can't remember the last time we had a winter without heavy snow, even if only for a few days.  Still, for the second year running, I haven't had to go out and try to work in the snow.  Last year, of course, I was on long-term sick leave.  This year, it fell on a Friday and, as I no longer work on Fridays, I was able to go back to bed and leave my car buried in snow in the car park.  Don't worry: the car can take it - it was designed to withstand Swedish winters, so a day in the snow won't do it any harm.  It will probably make it feel at home.  Still, with any luck the snow won't linger for long and should be gone completely by early next week.  Which is just as well, because, as ever, we just don't seem to be able cope with it.