Monday 20 December 2010

This is a photograph of Mummy Georgina, Daddy Dan, Orianne, Noah and Leyton before it got too windy to enjoy.

This is another photograph of Mummy Georgina and Leyton while the sun was still shining.


And this is a photograph of Leyton yesterday when he was still 0 years old, trying to eat sand. He decided that he actually quite liked it.

Poor Leyton was sick this morning. Not a good thing to happen on your birthday. His brother Noah had already been sick in the restaurant at breakfast although they seemed OK in themselves. Then the wind got stronger and it became quite cold so we retreated to our apartment for the day to watch endless replays of Sky News.
Sky News, now there is another pet hate of mine. How do they get away with running one or two major stories endlessly on a loop all day? Obviously today's story was all about the snow. Now there's anothr pet hate of mine, the way we fail to handle snow every year. I do understand that the falls have been exceptional here, but the fundementals of managing it are all wrong and it's not just down to "well we only get snow every no and then so it's not worth spending public money".
I watched an "official" on TV advising us not to buy winter tyres because - "they need to be stored in summer and not everyone has a garage" and "are expensive" and "you need to go to a garage and get the summer tyres replaced for winter tyres". Negative, negative, negative.
In Switzerland it is compulsory to either have all weather tyres or two sets of wheels, one for summer one for winter. Garages change these over for you free of charge and if you don't have storage facilities the garage will store them for you. It's so simple and it keeps the traffic moving.
Also, we lived up a mountain but the road was only closed 3 times in 30 years. They simply run a snow ploughs up and down the roads all the time. Gritting is absolutely useless in heavy snow.
When are we ever going to learn? We are the laughing stock of Europe. Get a grip Britian and sort things out. We can't afford NOT to solve this problem. It's costing more in lost business than any small investment it would take to stop this madness.






5 comments:

Unknown said...

We get lots of snow every winter, so I can't imagine what it would be like to only get it now and then!

Sueann said...

We too get some big snows and they can't seem to figure that they should have the plows ready and waiting on the roads and freeways. No...they wait until everyone gets stuck...then the close the roads...then they plow! Duh!!! Every year it is like this. So stupid!!
Sigh!!
Hugs
SueAnn

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hear the little ones are not feeling well. I was thinking of you today when we got the pictures showing Heathrow and all the snow and people sleeping in the airport. Hope you're enjoying the sun. Our weather has been rainy today but not as bad as the LA area. The desert does have some advantages. One day of rain is enough already. Ready for the sun. Flagmaker

www.retiredandcrazy.com said...

Hi Eva and SueAnne. The theory is that if we had more snow we would invest in heavy duty ploughs etc. Unfortunately this explanation doesn't always stack up because we had heavy snow last year and Heathrow Airport then REDUCED their snow clearing investment by 2/3rds!

www.retiredandcrazy.com said...

The boys soon bounced back flagmaker. It was just a pity that it was Leyton's birthday although, in fairness, he didn't even realise it at the time!

The thing at Heathrow was a disgrace. It wasn't only the inability to cope with the snow, but the whole way they dealt with the crises. There was no information, no shops open, no-where to buy food or drinks and no staff on duty to help out.