The Big Freeze

The United Kingdom is in the worst cold snap since the 1960’s, and we have had more snow than we have seen in over twenty years. Coming from Canada, I’m quite used to snow - and cold for that matter - but it is entirely different situation here, mainly because we don’t have the resources to cope with it.

To give you an idea, the county council for our area - an area of over 400 square miles - does not have enough gritting trucks and snowploughs available. Supplies of grit and salt are never adequate, and basically, even a few inches of snow can cause just about everything to grind to a halt. The ten inches we had on Tuesday night managed to snow us in more thoroughly than we’ve ever been snowed in before.

The scenery is absolutely gorgeous up behind our house (top photograph), but as you can see from the photo below it, the roads going out of our subdivision are not cleared. I’m standing right at the bottom of the road our house is on, and the “main road” is on my left. Our road itself is nearly impassable. The few cars that have managed to get through have compacted the snow, and the colder it gets, the icier it gets. My husband, son and a friend have just tried to clear part of the road coming down out of our driveway, in the hopes of maybe getting out tomorrow. But even if my husband can get out, the roads leading up to the motorways (which are cleared) are really slippery and dangerous. Not good.

The cold is a huge issue here, as snow is bringing down power lines and leaving folks without electricity and heat. I’m so grateful to be in a new subdivision with underground power lines. We are warm and dry here, and feeling very blessed. I feel so sorry for the thousands of people who are not, especially as they are predicting temperatures right down to minus 20 Celsius tonight. It got down to minus 16 last night, and even we were cold in our nice warm house, with the heating on. I also worry about the homeless people, and pray they are in shelters.

I am a bit of a squirrel, and always stock up on food and provisions before the winter. My parents did that in Canada when I was growing up and it’s just kind of ingrained. For once, it has come in really handy. I have not even had to go to the grocery store (it would have been a long, cold walk!) and I am glad as I have read they are really busy. Apparently people are starting to panic buy with the cold weather predicted to last for at least two weeks.

As for me, I’m just grateful to be warm and dry and have my family at home with me. I may have missed my exercise class today, but I got lots of exercise shovelling our driveway! And as long as everyone stays safe and warm, I really don’t mind the snow at all.