AlasdairMc – Member

My wife said that this morning everyone on the bus she was on was complaining about the nutter cycling along in shorts, saying he was irresponsible for doing so. My wife didn’t have the guts to say it was me.

WHen I rode to work in the snow last year, a colleague had an arguement with me for doing it.
His arguement was based on the premise that with all the out of control cars sliding around, it would have been my fault if they’d killed me.
How do you respond to that?
Genius!

I’m just annoyed that everyone and their dog seems to be talking about snow days off and stuff. Whereas some of us have the misfortune to be set up to work from home, so whilst I’m stuck in the middle of Derbyshire just on the edge of the Peak District, and surrounded by tons of snow (13 inches so far on our garden table and loads more falling), I am still on the computer getting work done (except right now obviously!), not playing in the snow. Hmph.

Although having said that I did manage a quick lunchtime ride up to Crich Chase yesterday – was brilliant – discs iced up at the top, so I rode the downhill braking by dragging my foot in the snow, not that I needed much brakes with a foot of snow – I was in granny ring for most of the descent! Had to kick steps to get up some of the uphills! Snow was well over the hubs for a lot of the ride. Amazing scenery at the moment too.

In terms of whether it is possible to get to work – round here, buses are stopped, many people’s cars can’t get out of the roads (most residential roads aren’t gritted, and it is a steep sided valley), trains are working if you live near a train station. Unless you’re a mountain biker, live near a station, or have parking on a main road, it is pretty hard for a lot of people to get to places. Local supermarkets haven’t got any milk or bread any more either. So it is a little bit of a snowpocalypse in some places.

Yesterday I saw reports on the BBC which made me laugh.

The first was a lady in Teeside saying how the snow was knee deep. She made exagerated movements with her feet lifting them in and out of the snow…. the snow was actually only ankle deep.

The other was a reporter in Sheffield again saying how deep the snow was where he was and picked some up off the ground… which was ankle deep. He then said “this road should be busy with cars at this time of day” the camera then panned away to show he was on a cul de sac!

Before the snow hit the south a BBC 6 o’clock news reporter was in Northumberland. He said, and i quote:

There is so much snow in North East England people are barely venturing out.

Are journalists allowed to outright lie now?

Joking aside, this stuff did kill the dinosaurs. And they were fatter than (some) of us.