Snow: The Unwanted Visitor

~ beetleypete

Five minutes after leaving the house on Ollie’s dog walk, we were surprised by a sudden, and unexpected, fall of snow. Regular readers will know that I detest snow. While it may be lovely to look at when it blankets the scenery, in such a rural location it can just serve to trap you in the village.

Snow on the small country roads locally makes life difficult for everyday things. Shopping, going to the Doctor, popping into town for essentials, and so on. The risk of being in an accident, or perhaps breaking down in snow make it a carefully considered decision whether or not to venture out at all.

Julie has no option but to go to work on her allotted days of course. Like me, she hates driving in snow, even the relatively small distances to one of the three Doctor’s surgeries where she has to work.

Fortunately, that snow was very wet, and is not settling or drifting. But we have more forecast for later this evening, and if that settles and freezes overnight, it can be a game changer.

So our fingers are crossed for no settling snow. With a predicted -5C overnight, the freezing slush will be bad enough to have to cope with.

44 thoughts on “Snow: The Unwanted Visitor”

    1. It looks lovely when you have nothing to do. But there’s no point travelling to visit a country then being trapped in one place by bad weather and terrible road conditions.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  4. I hope by now the snow is still not settling, Pete if so I hope the gritters are out again it’s not always the main roads but the side roads and small roads that can be like an ice rink..Stay safe when driving x

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  8. I enjoy snow much more when I don’t have to go anywhere and can watch it falling outside my window. That being said, if it doesn’t snow by or on Christmas I’d prefer it not snow at all. We rarely get snow before January anymore. I don’t mind driving in it, but I do mind the other drivers who have their own “unique” ideas how to navigate those obstacles which snow can provide. I hope any challenge with snow is a brief one, Pete.

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        1. Hello Chuq, I live in Whitstable. It’s a super town but way too popular in summer. The Oyster festival is busy but worth a look and September after the kids go back to school is a good time to visit. The last celebrity to visit was Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul who spoke rather highly of the town. It’s also twenty minutes by train from Broadstairs which has a super Victorian era beach that’s worth a day trip.

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        2. You would like it, chuq. The reply from 2581John is my cousin Keith, and he lives there. I have visited the town many times over the years, and it has become rather ‘trendy’, but no worse for that. It has a shingle beach, so no sand. I wrote about visiting Keith in 2015 on this blog. There are photos, including one of Keith with Julie and Ollie.

          Oyster Town


          Best wishes, Pete.

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  13. (1) Coincidentally, I watched a 1997 Canadian family-oriented drama entitled “Kayla” last night (because a friend recommended it). It’s about a wild dog, tamed by a young boy, that eventually becomes a trusty sled dog.
    (2) Snowplow driver’s song: “There’s no business like snow business like no business I know…”
    (3) It rarely snows in the Las Vegas Valley, but last Sunday, Mt. Charleston got 11 inches (28 cm) of snow. The Lee Canyon ski resort is in business!

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  14. I remember my aunt in Wiltshire being very nervous of black ice when she had to drive into Devizes for her 12 hour shift at the hospital. And rightly so. Icy roads are worse than anything. Stay safe! and warm!

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  15. I don’t mind snow at all, it’s the ice you can’t see that is scary biscuits. Our car park at work has been treacherous all week, we now doing what we call ‘the penguin walk’ to get to and from the clinic. Much easier to walk on the snowy grass.

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    1. The snow makes the smaller roads here difficult, as they don’t get gritted. It has been icy over on Beetley Meadows, and I agree snow is easier to walk on when I take Ollie out. But snow on the roads makes life very difficult for Julie. The roads haven’t been too bad with ice so far, as the sun melts it away quite quickly. But what with the heating still not working properly, and having to drive quite a bit this coming weekend, I will be pleased to see the end of this cold snap on Sunday.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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      2. Childhood memory: I tried to snap my cold fingers one wintry day back in Missouri. My fingers were so numb that I couldn’t achieve a cold snap, so I put gloves on to warm them up. But you can’t snap your fingers with gloves on. The next step (removing gloves, then snapping my fingers) would have been the charm, but by then I was told to come help build the snowman…

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