Storm Caroline

I loved the fact that you said no thank you very politely. When you are kids you only wash hands when your parents tell you to surely ?
Would definitely buy a copy of your book to marigold, the chapter entitled 5 try to meet at Glaslyn will be good
 
A few germs weren't going to put me off my secret chips! It's taken me 64 years, until Val reminded me today, for the need to wash my hands to even occur to me.
What amazes me most, looking back, is that in 1953 or thereabouts you could buy a satisfying bag of beautiful chips for two old pennies. 5p in new money nowadays = one shilling in old money, i.e 12 old pennies, so 2 old pennies would be about 1p in today's money. (Is that right? sounds incredible.) Quite a slice out of my 2 shillings per week pocket money, unless I'd managed to pinch it from my mum's housekeeping purse, of course, or had said I'd forgotten my subs. again, at the Guide meeting.
 
My primary school was an old "Board school" with the classrooms heated by huge coal fires. We had outside loos too with a wall built around them for extra privacy. So in 1963 the caretaker was able to put put three or four braziers between the high wall and the loo cubicles (in the girls loo anyway) and they never froze, much to our annoyance! Schools with frozen loos were closed. I can also remember that us girls were given permission to wear trousers to school because it was so cold.

I quite agree BYM - 5 trying to meet at Glaslyn would be an entertaining chapter.

You probably made the right decision about Lichfield Marigold; there's 6 inches of snow here (Shropshire) and it's still snowing, so no hand bell ringing tonight. Mischief (my cat) doesn't know what to make of it - it's the first time he's seen deep snow but there is evidence that he has rushed around madly at least twice!
 
We got about 4 - 5 inches of snow here. It was much shallower by the run door so I left it open this morning to see it they wanted to check it out but they stayed under cover and watched it falling. Lulu pecked at it a bit.
Hoping the trains are running into Brum tomorrow or it may be an impromptu long weekend.
 
10p for a bag of chips in Newcastle in 1984, £1.50 to get into the football. Cheapest ticket is £33 now apparently, so chips are quite reasonable in comparison. Tells us that the price of chips multiplies roughly 10 fold every 30 years.
 
I liked the way we were all sitting indoors chatting on here, yesterday. And I liked the link to The Daily Mash embedded in this article about snow.
(Warning - don't click if you mind strong language!)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/10/hearts-melting-uk-2017-snowbomb-slushy-snow
 
Saw this comment in the Bucks Free Press yesterday pertaining to the snow.

"Having been unable to reach West Wycombe Road from Desborough Park Road, I was offered the choice of paying a quartet of men £6.00 for a push fifty or so meters to the brow. Who said community spirit was dead?"

What made them decide on £6 is what I want to know?
 
I remember and no doubt Mrs BYM remembers it all too well, back in 2009 when we had a lot of snow, I had to do a "quick" emergency rail bus from Wickford- Shenfield one stop,due to some overhead wires coming down, as it was only one run and OH was standing there she offered to come along and fill out my running sheet i.e logging the times I arrived and departed various stations en route. This was 1.40pm about mid Dec and then it started to snow. One run turned into all staions to Southend central and back by which time it was snowing heavily, which then was Wickford - Ashingdon all stops, this station and the one before it are down steep country lanes, a nightmare on a sunny day let alone getting dark and covered in snow. This went on all evening until 11 30pm,when we were told by National Express at Wickford to stand down as there would be no one at Shenfield, which is a busy station, myself and another driver queried this and decided we would go to the station, anyway, on rounding the bend there were hundreds of people, lots of them girls in party frocks after office parties standing in the cold as the rail staff had locked up and made them wait outside. How we got them all on the bus I will never know, and OH'S face when the pompous rail man told her the bus was full and she couldn't get on it were a joy to behold. " I have the clip board and without me this bus isn't going anywhere"
Just outside Shenfield is a steep hill with a bend, and it was littered with abandoned cars due to the snow. But a low and behold all the men got off the bus pushed cars out of the way, helped get the bus up the hill.Gave their coats to shivering ladies, then everyone sang Christmas songs and of course one person needed to go to Ashingdon a good two hours away in the snow, but I ended up literally taking people to their houses as we couldn't get to some stations. So Mrs Yetimans quick trip out ended back at the yard at 3.40am and she is still with me.
We got a huge cheer at Shenfield by the way as our two buses rounded the corner that night
 
That sort of a trip would make her realise, if she needed to, what a marvellous man she has in her life. That sounds as if it would make an excellent Christmas film, BYM. it could start with some of the back stories of you and Mrs BYM, and National Express, and the partygoers, and the people who locked them out in the cold, with a starring role for the man who told her there was no room on the bus!
I hope you got a bonus from your bus company.
 
Bonus, you must be joking, but someone we took home that snowy night did send us a M & S hamper, I did get a lie in as I should have been starting work at 5am, but we have to have 8 hours legal rest between shifts. I seem to remember OH being squashed against the window as we left Shenfield, she turned into "Blakey" from On the Buses at one point,and people standing upstairs sitting on stairs, but we got them all home. I never listen to National Express when they say go home they run to their own agenda and it's not for the good of the customer, and I never leave a person stranded, thats someones wife, daughter, son etc.
 
Public service is a calling!
I used to make journeys I wouldn't risk now - setting out in a snow storm to cross the Malverns to Ross-on-Wye in a 2CV for instance. The guy in front in a 4x4 was going so slow, with the covering getting deeper by the minute, that we were risking spending the night out there.
And coming back from Rugby one time as a teenager on a moped when the road had totally disappeared so as you had to guess which way it went by the vague bumps that were hedge lines under the drifts. Not at all clever!
 
Interesting link - put in your postcode and compare the temperature with other places all over the world.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23252638
Made me feel a bit warmer!
 
A friend of mine once worked on a contract installing DC power systems in Siberia, that was particularly grim apparently. It must have been as Mrs Dinosaw once did a trip to Moscow in November for work and that was the coldest she had ever felt.
 
Only Baker Lake in Canada and somewhere in Russia were colder - it was minus 10.2 last night. At 1 degree it's warmer now, at 8pm than it's been all day.
No post for two days, pavements and untreated roads (like the lane outside) have been really icy. The forecast has altered to more heavy snow in the next few hours instead of rain. My cat hates it!
 
We managed -5C which seems quite tropical compared to you Margaid. The lane was like a skating rink. Roll on spring
 
Well now, here in the Midlands, its a balmy +4.5 in the run tonight. It sounds like its raining out there but it isn't. Just melting and running off the roof. Those blue skies today and pink sunrise this morning were spectacular though. Typically my camera decided to pack up at the weekend and is in for repair.
 
Life is like that, like the time OH was down at the run and a Kingfisher came and sat on the roof of it. No chance of getting out and getting a camera.
Or being out and seeing a Long eared Owl just sitting in a bush looking at you and realising the little camera you carry around in your back pack isn't in there, i think everyone has a "if only I had my camera" tale to tell
 
Yes, mine was watching Mischief (3 yr old cat) experiencing snow for the first time! He played with it when it was only an inch or so deep, but it lost its' appeal at 6 ".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top