h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thank you for dropping by, but really, don't you think it's time you went? I mean, it's been lovely living in Narnia but I'm getting a bit fed up now. I'll admit you do look very pretty up in the hills, but I've almost forgotten what it's like to be able to drive out of my road without help from the neighbours, and it wasn't until I eventually made it to the coast today that I remembered what green was like.

They keep talking on the news about your other long visits and I've seen photos of myself in 1963, all wide eyed and shiny faced with excitement, looking at you for the first time. But I was very small and everything was new, so I didn't need much to get excited. However, since then I've discovered books and boys and kittens and central heating. So, you're just not that much of a novelty.

Sorry.

Hope you thaw out soon.

We had some weird snow here today... falling, really heavily but none at all was settling ... (all the earlier snow had basically all gone cept a few bits ere and there in the shadier shadows and evil looking dark doorways and alleys) Is spring due to happen this year?

Hello!

The thaw's going to be a while here. My village had about 15 inches in total in the past week alone. Every time it looked like it had finished we all went out and cleared the road and driveways, and then it would snow again! As you know, it's just a little cul de sac so there's no through traffic, but enough cars went back and forth to compact it. Then over the cold nights it's frozen solid.

At the moment anyone who is risking driving at all is either getting stuck in piles of snow or sliding across sheet ice. Luckily it's a nice friendly road and we're all helping each other with digging or pushing. Last night there was more snow, maybe about an inch, but enough to lie on top of the compacted ice and make it more dangerous. There are certainly cars in my road that haven't moved for more than 2 weeks.

Once I get out of the village it's all piled up by the side of the roads but mostly they are passable. Up in the hills it's all still white and untrodden, and will stay there long after it's gone everywhere else. And for 2 days this week I've had appointments near the coast, where's hardly any snow left. It's strange to then drive back and see it getting deeper and deeper the closer I get to home.

No weird snow here 2legs, just the usual stuff, so I'll throw some in the direction of Cambridge and hope it finds you!

One thing did amuse me slightly when it was the worst of it last week and everyone was housebound for 5 days. I'm one of the oldest people in the road, and I live alone. So some of my younger neighbours knocked to make sure I was OK. It was very sweet of them and I didn't mind at all. The cat's not much of a conversationalist so it was nice to have a chat.

We were quite lucky over Christmas, as I was at my Dad's, which is near the coast... just a few miles inland and they had inchs and inchs of snow and we kept missing it.... Until just in the new year, the most recent batch and we got it...
My Father got to help the neighbours over the road, who are I guess quite old, as they're front gate which is metal had kinda 'froze' itself shut and she couldn't open it... But my Dad soon got it open... Although there are quite a few elderly people up my Dads road, most have younger friends and relatives/children nearby so they were helped
Of course, up the road where I live, and have lived for ten years, I've no idea how old any of the neighbours are, as I've never met a single neighbour, cept for those who work in the shops up the road such is life living in a city I guess

Welcome to my world. We have 20+ inches of snow for weeks by now and by the looks of it it'll last until March or so. It hasn't been snowing for few days now, which only means that it gets colder and makes the snow more... longlasting.
However, I must admit that this isn't really too unusual, we have all the machinery to keep the roads more or less clean and so on. No school is canceled, trains are in time.
Looks nice, feels cold - all the same here.

You're right. It's dragged on far too long, and now there's no snow in the trees it's all very dreary and grey looking around here now.

We've had a few days of warming here. The last of the white stuff in my yard melted overnight. Hallelujah! The ground has been covered since Christmas Eve. Patience is Paradise, as the old Turkish proverb says.

I've had enough of the rain already though : And I'm sure they were predicting flooding in some areas If its not one thing its the other.... At least we know where we are with rain

Hati you must think we're all pathetic in the UK, with the country in crisis over a bit of snow. Canadians think we're funny too. And it's not even as if it's that rare to get a lot of snow. Maybe we just like complaining!

2 days of freezing fog and then quite a lot of rain which has melted most of the snow and resulted in floods. And then there was that funny glowing thing in the sky for a while today.

If we have too much snow, we are in trouble for a short while, too. There just isn't enough snow ploughs etc. In places where such amount of snow is seen once in a blue moon it's probably not reasonable to have all those fancy machines standing somewhere, just in case.
I've heard that Brits are good at complaining about weather. Believe me, you're not even close to Estonians. We have more weather to complain about.
Tonight we expect -33C. &

A bit of the snow from 3 weeks ago is still up on the top of the hills or piled by the roads. Today I woke up to a little more which fell last night. But this was icy snow, frozen as it fell. I stayed indoors in the warm.

We had a nice lethal covering this morning too, didn't notice it fall but it was damn slippary underfoot as I skidded to the bakery at about 11 something AM... Not been outside since though, so no idea if there's been anymore

The problem is in the UK, its not* that* unusual for us to get a smattering of snow, perhaps worse this year than most, but not that unusual, certianly not as much as I recall we had in 1987 or then again some time about 1990 (can't quite remember when that one was)... However, back then I do recall on both occasions that the council gritted, and used snow ploughs, not just* on the A roads and motorways, but like on roads people actually use... This time around, in the same area, there was nothing. ;- Quite nice as we were at my Fathers, and stuck at the top of a hill that cars couldn't get up, which was certainly gritted and cleared back in 87 ... Its just a general degredation of council services whilst council tax increases... I get half the bin collections I used to, my street isn't roadswept in the summer as it was less than a decade ago, and the councils don't clear the snow cept on the very* main roads... I dunno... has central gov funding to the councils reduced? They're certainly getting a third more from council tax here than they were a decade ago

You're right with the dates. Early January 1987 I was heavily pregnant and snowed in for about a week. And again in late January 1990, pregnant again, and I remember slipping over and having quite a scare.

Is it just me or don't the councils use snow ploughs any more? It's all about gritters (or lack of) and not about ploughs, but surely that was a more eficient way of keeping roads open. I don't know about the use of central funding, but I suspect you're right, there have been cuts all round. I wonder where the money goes?

I was still pretty young in 1987 (Of course I'll continue saying 'I'm young now' forever, but that is another matter entirely ) actually guess I'd have been about 11 years old... And still living at Fathers...
Pretty rural and yet on the edge of a pretty big town... kind of best of both worlds; fens and the river and marshes a few minutes walk one direction, and the town centre a couple miles the other way, and then the beach and sea just beyond the town
Anyhow, walking out to the country side in 87 I remember the really* little country lanes where the snow plough had been along and the snow was just piled up at least twice my height either side of the road and then walking down the footpaths towards the river, where the trees had prevented the worse of teh snow making it onto the dirt tracks, but then just huge open areas of normal fields, just absolutely white as far as you can see (which is a long way there as it is really flat) and the river pretty much frozen from bank to bank

Ahh, 1990, that would make sense, as that was I'm pretty sure the time we cannoed back from some way out, where we'd left the canoe the previous weekend, and in the quey the river was frozen totally, and the canoe just kind of worked like an ice breaker until we made open water (actually don't remember it being that* cold as was kept warm by the physical act of canoeing )
No idea what the money goes on now... Oh... yeh, I remember... PR for the council rather than actual* stuff... its all about 'peoples opinions', 'levels of beurocracy' , the 'administration of resources and their measurement', etc...

1987 - that must be the year I remember dressing up in my mum's skiing trousers and jacket (she'd never been skiing in her life) and took my two foster sisters sledging. I knew I was about that age. Don't remember 3 years later, but of course I was a Grown Up by then and probally out getting or something.

It's really getting boring now.

There were still little white pockets in the north facing hollows up in the hills, legacy of last month. And then on Sunday night another 2 inches fell, so the journey to work on Monday was interesting as there was no grit down anywhere. The temperature dropped and it iced up overnight so this morning was very slippery. And there might be more on the way.

You had two inches? We've had about 2mm overnight, but it looks more like hail that fell and then froze to the floor. That's the same stuff we had at the end of the last bout.

So much for my week off spent scrubbing my van out. Not going outside standing still in this weather!

Ah, we had the hail that froze in the middle of last week. This Sunday night was proper snow again, but it's crunchy ice now.

I think you're wise to stay indoors. I spent ages washing and waxing the car at the weekend, but I wish I'd never bothered!