I woke up on Saturday and immediately realised playing basketball to the full after a year of inactivity leaves some sore muscles but just a quick glimpse through the window cheered me up only to start thinking whether we’ve done our shopping yet and worrying how on earth are we going to drive in these arctic conditions. Well, excuse me Milan, wake up!!! For crying out loud, you come from Slovenia where two feet of snow is a matter of winter fairy tale not misery and worries! What has happened to you to become such a softy?
Well, it all started when we moved to the UK where people just love talking about weather. It’s not that others wouldn’t do that too but Brits just cannot help themselves but slag off their weather regardless of the conditions. Just a few simple examples will be more than enough to tell you what I mean: “It’s sunny today.” will be turned into “It will be raining for the rest of the week!”, “It’s nice to see rain after a period of dry spell!” will be turned into “Another miserable summer ahead of us!”, or perhaps “We finally get a proper winter.” becomes “It’s so cold and miserable, and there will be severe disruptions again.”.
Oh, come on people! In my personal opinion Britain has got one of the best climates ever. It’s never too cold, it is never too hot and you get a bit of everything throughout the year. Could you possibly ask for more? I mean, it’s ideal!
As for the snow, the national obsession with the weather becomes something of a Bruce Willis style Hollywood movie. “Severe weather warning”, “arctic conditions” and “big freeze” are just some of the juiciest headlines the media use. Yes, media are the first to be blamed for the hysteria surrounding winter conditions. They make an inch of snow look like Siberia and a foot edges on Armageddon. The end of the world is nigh kind of behaviour… Another winter like this and I wouldn’t be surprised if there won’t be some talk about global freezing.
People themselves are the second in the row. Sometimes I even get a feeling bad conditions are taken as a good excuse to skive… First of all, you just have to adjust to snow and people shouldn’t blatantly expect that it will be business as usual. Trains will be delayed, traffic will be slower and even walking will be more difficult but that shouldn’t bring the country to a standstill, it’s just about adapting to different conditions, nothing else. Wake up earlier, leave earlier, drive slowly, be patient and smile. These are the phrases of the day but there will always be some disruption, just don’t make such a fuss about it.
There is also one more condition for trouble-free winter journeys. Be prepared! If you travel frequently during winter months and regularly face snow and ice then investing in a set of softer winter tyres with a deeper thread is a must. They enable far superior grip on snow but you will need chains or something similar for icy conditions. In general I suggest that you always have a folding shovel, chains, car door locks deicer, a small broom, a blanket and use windscreen washer with antifreeze during winter months.
What about public transport then? Ah well, it is pretty much the usual. Main roads should be gritted and snow ploughs should be used if there is more than 4 inches of snow on the roads. Buses normally cope quite well in winter because their engines and driving axles are in the back which makes driving in snow far easier in comparison to front-wheel front-engine cars. Trains on the other hand should not feel any disruptions up to about a feet of snow. However, I noticed that in Britain trains are not equipped with front plough attachments so they need a special train ploughs or even heated tracks as tremendously expensive alternatives. OK, super fast trains do need heated tracks but how many such trains do we have here? Eurostar is the only one that I am aware of. Supermarkets should hire ploughs to clean the parking, and everyone should take a shovel and clean the front of their houses (a bit of free exercise!). Airports on the other hand should have heated runways and plenty of deicers (for deicing aircraft wings and fuselage).
Here you go, some investment for airports and train operators, a small change for everyone else and even if only 10% of people would respond as I explained above, we wouldn’t face nowhere near as much disruption as we do now. You think this is expensive? Thinks again! I mean, how much have the winter disruptions cost Britain in the past 3 years? Everyone of us should do a little bit, that’s all there is. Oh yes, and I need to start playing basketball every week from now on to avoid walking around like Herr Flick!
Enjoy the winter folks!
