|
Written by Nigel
|
|
Tuesday, 17 February 2009 |
|
...and back with a vengeance. It seems that Old Man Winter was really offended when I suggested last time that maybe he was in retreat. It has been below freezing for the last week. Yesterday reached a high of -2°C. Wonderful isn’t it.
Yes we’ve been in the grips of wintery weather for the last week or so. We had more snow yesterday. This is not all bad news. Snow causes no disruption here. We may have around six inches of settled snow but the roads are clear, the schools are open and people are most definitely not being told not to travel. Now when I relate this to my friends back in dear old Blighty they tell me that’s because we’re used to dealing with snow. Well that may be true; the Swedes are used to dealing with snow. But Skåne is no further north than Newcastle and has almost the same climatic and weather so really geography can’t be used as an excuse. Why is Britain so bad at dealing with – well everything. Right now its snow but it could just as easily be leaves on the line in autumn.
Some things are admittedly different here, cars must have winter tyres – either studded of deep tread – from November through till March and the Swedish driving test includes a skidpan test. Honestly though round here tha5t hardly makes any difference. The roads are kept clear. We see the snowplough coming through a lot. If the weather gets worse and the ploughs are needed to keep the main roads open, then farmers can get paid for keeping the minor roads open. It’s a joined up system. It works!
 It does make everything beautiful though and all that snow does make the daylight last a lot longer. Troy and I love the long walks in the snow. We all went down to the local nature reserve where Steph managed to get this picture of a dipper - Cinclus cinclus - darting around in the old mill race.
On the farm things are still in a winter slumber, any growth in the garden is no buried. The chickens are stating to come back into lay again as the days lengthen. It will soon be time to worm them all. Now I know that worming is something that confuses a lot of people so I intend sometime over the next couple of weeks pulling something together from my old college notes so if Flubenvet or any anthelmintic confuses the hell out of you look out for that one. |
