Just Grit And Bear It

When Britain is hit by snow, suddenly everyone loses all common sense. People rush out to shops, having apparently eaten every morsel of food they own; they lose all common sense by trying to drive in heavy snow and on icy roads; and they moan constantly about gritters and inept councils but do not think to clear their own driveway to stop themselves falling over.

Grit supplies are dwindling nationwide and must be saved for major roads and motorways. This means that no, 15 Turner Croft will not be gritted, Mr/s Generic-Affronted-Caller-On-The-Local-News, as the M6 is, at present, slightly more important. Now please go and make yourself a brew and think about that old adage that every cloud has a silver lining and how you can panic buy 17 loaves of bread as soon as the shops are open.

Is it terrible that we get to make snowmen as big as those I remember from my childhood? Or that we get a couple of days away from life to spend time together? In all probability, we will not see a whiter winter for many years to come and, in hindsight, someday we will realise that getting cut off from the world for a while was not half as bad as we made out.

By law, the local authority is indeed accountable to clear snow and ice. Still, let us not make ourselves wholly reliant on the state and helpless without it. Take a shovel and clear the pavement outside your homes if you are able, do not moan and wait for someone else to do it for you. If everyone did the area in front of their houses instead of asking why somebody else has not done it, the pavements would be safer for those at risk, such as the elderly and disabled. Many countries, including Germany and Switzerland, set the legal obligation on property owners to clear pavements.

I hope a respite from the cold will come in the coming days and we can get back to our normal routines. Well, as normal as the British can be in our winter of discontent. Surely being taunted with thoughts of a “barbecue summer” last spring, only for it to turn out to be a literal damp squib, made us hate the establishment more. I reckon the Met Office has the worst job in the world, for we don’t want to hear their explanations (“The Gulf Stream? What’s that?”), we simply want a scorching summer for once. No matter the season, weather is always going to be a talking point on this tiny island.