And we did have snow

Well …

I put Sunday’s poem in the queue for publication (on this blog) on Friday, during a brief foray to the library, & was I glad I made the effort to brave snow & icy winds & go out. The whole weekend has been spent in confinement, all because of the weather. People have been talking about the worst for over 10 years, but I think its more like quarter of a century at least.

The snow has not been all that bad, in itself. I noticed no heavy falls, certainly no white-outs, during the hours of daylight, more just a continuing, unrelenting cross between drizzle & haar, no snowflakes of any size. But it settled, inches deep, fine & powdery, for the wind to do its worst on. The result has been deep drifts, even at low levels, in any & all areas exposed to the relentless blast from the east.

Many roads have been only intermittently passable – the labour of the snow-ploughs turned as ineffective as that of those clearing the Augean* stables; high level roads have just remained resolutely closed. Sporadic attempts were made to run a bus to the airport along at least part of the route – not a journey for the faint-hearted, especially as those announcements were soon followed by a radio warning that services had been suspended once again.

Buxton was almost completely cut off, even the main A6 impassable in both directions, though Radio 2 announced at 7pm on Sunday that it had finally been cleared, giving at least one through route. To some extent however life carried on as normal inside the town, with local radio announcing that many facilities would merely close earlier than usual.

Remarkably the trains continued to run, until defeated temporarily by snow drifts around Sunday lunchtime. The last I heard was that two extra snowplough trains had been sent out.

I had been optimistic about the prospects for Sunday since, after darkness fell on Saturday, we witnessed once again the phenomenon of a partial thaw where we nestle; the wind died down, precipitation ceased, some of the snow slid off hedges, gutters were dripping, dark patches appeared on the flagstones in the backyard.

Obviously it was not to be. The chill wind from Russia stirred itself once again, putting at least a temporary stop to our activities.

Makes us a bit like Cyprus, in a way.

*the Word spellchecker suggested amending this to Aegean.

Fiends or friends

Arguments between cyclists & other road users have not grown any less rancorous over the years.

Over one hundred & twenty one years ago, in April 1892, The Times published a lively exchange of accusation & complaint from all sides. It is not so very different today, despite the fact that the newspaper has taken up the cudgels on cyclists’ behalf.

At least motorists escaped opprobrium back then - the motor car barely existed, & certainly not under that name. But 'reckless riders of the iron horse' were, castigated for 'stealing past swiftly & silently' with no audible warning signal - an accusation which is incomprehensible to anyone who has ever heard a 'light locomotive' proceeding along the highway in modern times.

Horses & horsed vehicles are not permitted to race along our roads at break-neck sped; why should these daring, wheeled gentlemen of the road do so, unchecked by law or authority?

… cyclists as a body are rather unfairly abused. We are generally depicted as a sort of fiends tearing along regardless of all traffic, whether vehicular or pedestrian, neglectful of our own safety, & seeking to destroy young children.

All … classes [of road user] are naturally unwilling to pay excessive attention to the convenience of any other class.

…cyclists not only have to avoid being run over by vehicles but also to avoid running over pedestrians, the latter seeming to go out of their way to afford cyclists facilities in that direction.

… to become a cyclist apparently transforms an ordinary middle class young man into an active member of an unruly mob … they come swirling along, shouting to each other, or openly making remarks upon any ladies whom they happen to pass

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