Weather. Snow. Lack of.

[Ed P]

Blame the town planners, I’ll bet they were the ones that stipulated Barbie pink. When real Suffolk lime-wash is first applied it is bright pink due to impurities in the lime, then over time it fades into off-white.The next door property emulates a sort of faded Scottish lime-wash.

However, I bet that Barbie pink doesn’t ever fade.

[PlaneMan]

Nothing much here still but plenty of warnings doing the rounds, last check it was 3 yellow and one orange.

[Dave Rice]

Well the sun is out but it’s still -2 and snowing at the same time. Just light dusty stuff.

Looks like tomorrow afternoon and Friday morning is when the real event is due to happen with temps staying around -4.

Just as well I’m doing design work all this week and not camera installations!

[The Duke]

Managed to get my car up and around the corner earlier with little difficulty, however getting it back down was a pita, with lots of sideways movement. Luckily I was sliding away from the wall, and eventually got some grip. If id of been sliding the other way, id of just abandoned it. Which would of made my lovely “Christian” neighbours day as I was stuck outside her drive.

We have to be out for 8.30 in the morning for the docs, then onto the hospital. High chance that we will miss both.

[Richard]

Well it is already -5.2 at 17:52 and intermittent snow is blowing about. The road snow melted away, but there is now a light covering once more. It could be interesting tomorrow; that is as in the Chinese curse meaning of interesting. We are about 40 miles from the East Coast, others are worse off. I did not go out today, but might need to venture out tomorrow.

Apparently Granddaughter could not wait to go to school today, no delays, no fussing and no side trips. She thought the snow was magical.

[The Duke]

My girl  was very annoyed yesterday, as I sent her back to bed at 07:30, as all the local schools was reporting closures. Then at 08:00 her school announced it would be open as usual. The only school to open for miles around.

So when I woke her back up, she wasn’t best pleased. But then I told her, that they will most likely be short staffed, and you’ll have a fun day. Which turned out true, they played in the snow for a few hours, then watched videos in the hall, drinking hot chocolate to get warm. Many kids did stay off, (that didn’t need to), but to me they missed out, as its day like this that they will remember forever .

Today the snow and ice was worse than yesterday, but all schools are open, and it was “boring work” as usual.

Direct quote from the child.

 

[Richard]

The Duke wrote:

Nice garden Richard, but im not sure on your neighbours choice of paint colour. Who lives there? Barbie!

They are a slightly odd lot, the wife fancied a painter, had the house painted, then left with the painter. Well that is how the story goes anyway. No one likes the colour it looks OK under sodium light. I believe that the chap runs some Korean or Chinese restaurants.

Thank you for the comments on the garden Steve, I put lights in a few years back when my hands and other parts still worked, LED lights are wonderful, at night the snow looks quite magical, but it does not photograph as well as I would like – and I have tried.

[Bob Williams]

I remember a week or more in around 1959/60, when the buses to my old village could not get into the valley. On one particular day I wanted to go in because it was footy practice for a County Schools Cup Final. Pushed my bike half a mile, rode it another 7½ miles to school, only fell off once into a drift. Got to school and it was shut, no footy practice. Went to the pictures in Mansfield instead. No local radio in those days, to tell us if schools were closed.

I was footy daft as a kid, still am. We won that final, played a local Grammar school. Us Tech School kids was good at footy. Mr Crofts used to say “You can beat this lot. Their idea of training is 10 minutes behind the bike sheds with a bag of sweets. They are reading Shakespeare while you are designing and making stuff with your hands. Go get ’em!” Motivation…

But when I did get to school when it opened, because there was still some snow, some of the teachers had not made it. So some lessons were outside, we made sleds in Engineering. Our school had loads of pitches, but the top two were uphill. Magic for sledding, so a fun day as you say Steve. Tell your young ‘un that I am almost 73 and still remember those days now.

We seem to be in between two separate weather systems here in East Lindsey. South Lincs, Skeggy and Boston, have blizzards and thick snow, Grimsby and Humberside too. It has snowed this morning and a few flurries through the day, but we have not had it as bad as others. I did go out and clear my paths and the neighbours, salted them afterwards which is what stops the ice reforming. One smartass passing me at work said “There will be more tonight. Wasting your time.” So I replied “According to the Met Office latest, you are wrong. But you are a big strong lad. Will you help me clear these paths?” – “Not likely.”  – “Then get the F*** out of my Close!” (With a smile. Sort of.)

But the problem for us will be the cold: we have two systems to north and south of us and low pressure from both, but we are missing the snow. So we will be coldest in England tonight: – 7°c atm (20:23) and dropping. Today I also managed to get the car out, get some medication, a new pair of gloves and post our old passports off. I have the only car in the Close that is free of snow.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[The Duke]

Im now officially sick of the snow. My amazon prime buy said Monday! What is this the 1970s lol.

I’ll be sick of it if I cant get out my street tomorrow.

[PlaneMan]

It’s finally arrived.

Nothing really so far but it’s a lot for around here and it’s getting heavier by the minute.

[Dave Rice]

Pretty much the same here, it’s mid afternoon it’ll hit. A red warning for just west of here – North Somerset, Devon and South Wales – from 3pm.

[PlaneMan]

Yes Dave, just had the warning myself.

Just got back from Aldi, main routes are totally fine, evidence of heavy gritting and most people are being sensible. It wasn’t that cold earlier but my car now says -4 and the wind chill is immense, I had 2 long sleeve t-shirts, a thick hoodie and my heavy Dickies jacket with a removable fleece and I could feel the wind through all that.

Dave, did you get my PM?

[JayCeeDee]

 

Back garden after this morning’s dusting. It’s been a bit blowy, looked very blizzard like, even without a great deal of snow falling.

[The Duke]

Well we had no chance of getting out this morning. So doc was cancelled. When we called the ozzy, they said they was about to call us as they was short staffed, to see if we could push it till tomorrow. So not the worst outcome.

Lets see what tomorrow brings.

Update- my next Monday delivery turned up 2 mins ago. So very pleased as is my tortoise as it was her heat bulb .the cold weather seems to of pop it. I see amazon took the under promise and over deliver approach, rather than the the opposite. Most other companies, would of just left it as normal next day, even if the chance was high they would miss it. I was expecting it, tomorrow or sat, if honest. I thought Monday was extremely conservative.

In the end it took them about 17h. Well done. Though my eBay buys this week also have delivered faster than usual, which is bizzar. So royal mail is keeping up too. 5 stars all round.

[Ed P]

It isn’t remotely as bad as the 1960/61 winter. I can still remember coming home from the 1960 Boxing Day Newport v Babas match and spending most of my time going downhill on my backside as my neoprene soled winklepickers were more like ice-skates than crampons! That was merely the start of three months of snow and sub-zero weather when even the sea was frozen at Brighton.

Iirc there were still patches of snow on Dartmoor on mid-summers day.

This ‘Beast from the East’ is just a pussy-cat in comparison.

[Bob Williams]

1962/3 was a bad one. As a Junior Deckhand, I had returned from a Meditarranean trip and was nicely tanned. I felt so cold, could not get warm, returned to Hull early and signed on again for another Medi trip. Just stayed long enough to visit both brothers and b******k them rigid for not looking to our parents in the cold. I was still cold when I returned, then a trip around the Americas put that right. Next was a series of 10-day runs to Norway and Sweden. In winter. I think all that, at a young age, made me able to adapt to different climates and temperature ranges, in the Army.

No further snow here, but last night was very cold. I last took a reading before 20:00 and it was -7°c. It is officially -3°c atm, but when I went out to the bins, the wind was very strong and biting, must be around -7°c with wind chill. SWMBO has a Physio appointment tomorrow at 11:00, has called in to see if it’s still on.

Unfortunately it is. And I have run out of salt-grit for the paths. Still feeding my birds, now have a pair of Mistle Thrushes having a running battle with the Blackbird Gang. Sparrows picking up the bits and the Robins are not molested. Nobody messes with the Robins, hard little buggas! There is war on my backyard.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Richard]

Yes Bob, 1962/1963 was a bad one. It started for us over Christmas, we heard the milk bottles rattle at some godforsaken hour and thought someone was up to no good. However, the milkman had heard that trouble was coming and tried to get his round done early. The weather arrived and it lasted weeks. For weeks the fastest thing on the Exeter bypass was a bulldozer. Somewhere there is a photograph of father and the company accountant who had gone out to inspect a site on the edge of Dartmoor stopped on one of the then main holiday routes. One of them was stood on top of the company mini van and could still not see over the snow banks. Thousands of animals died on the moors that year and the factory was busy processing them for a long time.

Today I did not have a wonderful start to the day, My wife struggled out of bed and I settled into the sort of dream that I would rather not have settled into. I was on a business trip, (note I have been retired for 16 years) trying to work out where I was going after all my papers had disappeared and the station was apparently about to fall down. Suddenly I was crowbarred awake by said wife telling me the boiler was making funny noises, it was not doing anything by then, just flashing its ‘unhappy’ light. A check confirmed the most likely cause was an ice  blocked frozen waste pipe, so between 06:30 to 07:00 I was outside trying to defrost the thing. It was hopeless so I cut the pipe, a large amount of acid water soon gushed out, while ice bergs floated in the other part of the pipe. A trip to Screwfix for some temporary  relief pipework and the heating was back on by 08:50. A better design for the permanent pipework can wait for a proper thaw, I questioned the fitter at the time he did the installation but he was sure his installation should be OK. Still we should now be OK until the country’s gas supply runs out.

[Ed P]

I stand corrected – I was out by a couple of years — rewrite my remarks as 1962/63! Still most years were pretty bad, but trains etc ran on time as they were a lot heavier and BR had no compunction at chucking down loads of salt and sand.

[PlaneMan]

Came across this.

Click the video for sound.

[PlaneMan]

It’s starting to get serious here. About 3″ deep but some places that I can see from my front porch is probably nearer 6″.

The mini roundabout about 40 meters from my house is quickly disappearing. Just seen some idiot in what I think was a Toyota Aygo go into the roundabout far to quick, start to slide and jam on the brakes. Near perfect 270 to ruined front tyre/wheel.  Just drove around the roundabout and carried on. Didn’t even look at the front end.

[Author]

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