Not so amusing weather stories, I weep for my native land at times!

As part of my job I have to deal with a certain international education organisation. They have offices around the world (so how come any meetings I get invited to are in frackin’ Bethesda?!) The organisation in question appears to have gone into shutdown mode for a while now. Why? Because the exam office is based in Cardiff and the U.K. has once more, ground to a complete standstill because of the white fluffy stuff. Yep, I’m talking snow.

Now Canada gets its fair share of this stuff and in recent years so has the U.K. In fact over the last few years my parents back in sunny Birmingham have probably gotten more snow than us in the Great White North aka Toronto*.  The difference is of course, that somehow we manage to cope and the UK shivers in its boots** while wincing at every snowflake that hits the ground.

So how do we Torontonians carry on while my native land acts like the apocalypse has occurred? I really think the answer lies in attitudes. Here we are used to a good run of winter (a solid few months at the very least) so we’ve figured that life somehow has to go on, so we make do. It’s why I have a desk drawer full of gloves and toques and a collection of shoes under my desk. It’s why I can be seen wandering the corridors in my hiking boots (ok that may have more to do with the fact that I forget to change out of them!) I own every possible cold weather accessory you can think of. If the snow gets really bad I own Yaktrax and spiked walking poles. Stuff like this is a necessary part of life, just like snow tires on cars. People get up at stupid O’clock in the morning to clear their drives and sidewalks of snow, because that’s what you do in winter.

Contrast this to the U.K. , which appears to regularly run out of rock salt for the roads (incidentally roads in large urban areas here are pre-treated to stop the ice forming in the first place) and the general public in the U.K. are specifically told not to clear the streets because “if someone falls on a bit you’ve cleared then they can sue you.”. Yes Canadians, read that bit very carefully. I mean, seriously WTF? I’ve had online conversations with people who don’t believe it’s reasonable to expect someone to swap the tires on their car twice a year and “where would they put the spare tires anyway?” You know somehow people manage, even if it does mean you have 4 spare tires sitting in plastic bags under your bed.

Another argument I here all the time is to do with the money. The U.K. doesn’t have the equipment to deal with this stuff and no one is willing to pay the extra money to fund it. I don’t buy this either. My tax burden (the bit of my paycheque that disappears each month) is no worse in Canada than it was in the U.K.  Somehow we fund this stuff.

From what I can see the climate in the U.K. is only going to get worse in terms of winter and snow. People you need to start getting a grip! (Pun intended!)

 

* misnomer for so many reasons, for one thing I’m  now actually SOUTH of where I lived in the UK!!

** part of the problem being that they probably don’t own boots!