More on the snow

Despite all the complaints about the snow, I witnessed a very encouraging example of good neighbourliness in the street where I live; two people who live further down cleared the pavement of snow along one side of the road, from one end of the street to the other. They were helped by the young son of one them, who put a bag of grit on his sled, happily scattering it along the way.

There has been a lot of debate about what the Tory policy of the 'Big Society' might mean, but it strikes me this is a perfect example of it; an unrequested, altruistic act of practical help.

A second year of snow

Just when you thought it was safe to put away the thermals, we get a second year of freezing, snowy weather. This one seems to have taken public transport more by surprise than last year, with trains badly disrupted, although to be fair Brighton got their buses back on the streets quicker than before.

Temperatures in this normally mild coastal city dropped to a chilly -8.7C before a rapid thaw last weekend, although the mercury has dropped well below freezing again today.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

One thing I did not expect in moving to the sunny South Coast was to find myself housebound by snow. But the week-end before Christmas, that is exactly what happened. We had around 5 inches of snow on Thursday night, which then thawed slightly, and re-froze.

I managed to get out happily enough on the Friday, thanks to a good pair of boots, as I had to go to London. For once the railways had got their preparations right, and the trains ran almost on time, albeit with a slightly reduced service frequency. But over the weekend, the lack of preparation in Brighton itself showed with a lamentable lack of snow-clearing from the roads and pavements except for those in the centre. As a result, our street was a veritable ice rink, and remained so until Monday afternoon.

Still, for a while, it made the town look very festive in the run-up to Christmas...

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

After the snow, I suspect every other blog will about the weather this week, either carping on about how a few inches brings everything in the UK to a standstill, or how wonderful it is to have a day off.

I'm firmly with the latter. We've had a good six inches here in West London, falling all in one night, and it's the worst single snowfall for as long as I have lived here. So we can't be expected to gear up for it: the cost of all those snowploughs sitting doing nothing for years on end would be something to grumble about in its own right. And one day off every ten years is hardly a disaster (especially when most of us do loads of unpaid overtime). Clearly, places like hospitals have a torrid time, with ambulances struggling through snow-bound side roads, and wards being short-staffed just as there's a surge of broken bones and twisted ankles from people slipping over, but for the most part we catch up pretty quickly.

Actually, not everything did grind to a standstill, despite what the news media would have you believe: I travelled yesterday morning from Barry in South Wales back to Kensington, and the journey was pretty smooth: OK, my train from Cardiff was cancelled, but another one (from Swansea) turned up around the same time, and made it to London Paddington, taking only five minutes longer than usual. There was no District Line south, but by a combination of the Bakerloo and Piccadilly lines I was still home in half an hour. The worst bit was the last few hundreds yards from the Underground station, as the pavements were snowy. But, as you can see from the photo, it did look glorious, and a succession of charmingly eccentric snowmen have been built in the gardens over the last 24 hours.

There were a few surprises in what kept going and what did not: the Heathrow Express was suspended, despite the rest of the Great Western main line working normally, and despite the fact that the Piccadilly Line - with its vulnerable ground-level electric rails - was operating normally through to Heathrow. Apparently, trains cancellations were caused as much by the fact the staff couldn't get to work, as by snow on the line.

Still, things around here seem to be back pretty much to normal, so roll on spring!