So I have been listening to the snow reports on BBC radio and others, it seems you are having it rough over there but are you not old enough to remember how bad it was years ago ? I remember living in the village of Maidford in Northomptonshire and being cut off for nearly a week, I was a pupil at Woodford Halse and the school bus could not get through, when it did on the fourth day of the school week I got the cane for not going to school, even though not one other pupil went, I was made an example of because in the words of that sadistic b*****d headmaster he couldn’t cane everyone, he had to select one to treat like crap. My Mum went mad.
Anyway, it may please you all to know that today alone we got over 18 inches of snow, I still drove through it for 250 miles to get to Ben & Jerry’s so you could all get your dam ice cream LOL. I did however refuse point blank to drop my trailer at a tank wash and bob tail home in it.
No Pat , no you didn’t. Even a driving god can’t drive through 18 inches of snow for 250 miles , are you the US version of UKT ?
flat to the mat:
No Pat , no you didn’t. Even a driving god can’t drive through 18 inches of snow for 250 miles , are you the US version of UKT ?
The difference is most states that get snow deal with it quickly unlike the UK.
W.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Whilst the amount of snow hasn’t been bad this year (for most of us), it’s been unusual for the south of Britain that the snow has fallen during such really cold temperatures, normally we get snow after a cold snap but its usually just above freezing point when the snow actually falls, so the salt put down does its job, plus our usual snow is large wet flakes ideal for he salt to mix with.
This period its been below freezing for several days and still snowing but fine light powdery stuff, so the salt isn’t doing it’s job, i think this is why our roads have been reduced to mayhem for relatively little snow this time, the strong easterly winds drifting this type of snow easily.
PS, don’t pay too much attention to UK news reports Pat, especially from the state broadcaster, sensationalism is the common theme.
Dare I say it but it’s “the wrong type of snow” 
Judduan alluded to it - we deal with normal snow (ie big flecks in not so cold conditions) fairly well because normally that’s what we get.
But it’s the drifts which are killing it. Out the front of my house the road has been blown clear but in my garden it’s three feet high on the bits I’ve not scooped away and I’m struggling to find the dog 
Pat Hasler:
So I have been listening to the snow reports on BBC radio and others, it seems you are having it rough over there but are you not old enough to remember how bad it was years ago ? I remember living in the village of Maidford in Northomptonshire and being cut off for nearly a week, I was a pupil at Woodford Halse and the school bus could not get through, when it did on the fourth day of the school week I got the cane for not going to school, even though not one other pupil went, I was made an example of because in the words of that sadistic b*****d headmaster he couldn’t cane everyone, he had to select one to treat like crap. My Mum went mad.
Anyway, it may please you all to know that today alone we got over 18 inches of snow, I still drove through it for 250 miles to get to Ben & Jerry’s so you could all get your dam ice cream LOL. I did however refuse point blank to drop my trailer at a tank wash and bob tail home in it.
Thorpe St. Andrew school Norwich around 77/78 heavy snow and still 99% of pupils got in and the school never shut no matter the weather. The old red Bristol half cab buses all made it through, taking the ones who lived in the sticks Blofield/Brundall/Hemblington back and forth. Even with a power cut it was coats on and carry on as usual…how times change…
AndrewG:
Pat Hasler:
So I have been listening to the snow reports on BBC radio and others, it seems you are having it rough over there but are you not old enough to remember how bad it was years ago ? I remember living in the village of Maidford in Northomptonshire and being cut off for nearly a week, I was a pupil at Woodford Halse and the school bus could not get through, when it did on the fourth day of the school week I got the cane for not going to school, even though not one other pupil went, I was made an example of because in the words of that sadistic b*****d headmaster he couldn’t cane everyone, he had to select one to treat like crap. My Mum went mad.
Anyway, it may please you all to know that today alone we got over 18 inches of snow, I still drove through it for 250 miles to get to Ben & Jerry’s so you could all get your dam ice cream LOL. I did however refuse point blank to drop my trailer at a tank wash and bob tail home in it.Thorpe St. Andrew school Norwich around 77/78 heavy snow and still 99% of pupils got in and the school never shut no matter the weather. The old red Bristol half cab buses all made it through, taking the ones who lived in the sticks Blofield/Brundall/Hemblington back and forth. Even with a power cut it was coats on and carry on as usual…how times change…
.
We still had short trouser on, in that winter, and to walk 2 miles to school, made men out of us.
Poor snowflakes of today, let’s stay home it’s cold.
flat to the mat:
No Pat , no you didn’t. Even a driving god can’t drive through 18 inches of snow for 250 miles , are you the US version of UKT ?
If he could do that with that old fashioned American piece of junk that he’s always moaning about just think how much better he could have done the job with a UK spec 6x2 and an auto box. 
Pat …how long did it take for your arse to heal after the caning . 
When my wife lived in bulgaria, doing the same job she does now ( school teacher ) and under the commie regime, she wwas given a school to go to in the middle of winter…she had to be there, or no money…and had to trudge over fields of snow up to her waist for around 3 miles…soaking wet through, she still managed to get there on time, and soaking wet through, and just as she dried out, had to trudge the same journey back home…made of strong stuff these ol commies…
Remember the winter of 77/78 never missed a day off school it never closed unlike today
Think we had better tyres on the vehicles back them mine also the winter of 81/82 my bike test was cancelled due to snow but yep still rode it out on the roads dug a track out the street as no gritters in the estate well a few of us did we all helped out
We also cleared the paths even our neighbours if they couldn’t didn’t expect to be payed unlike today
flat to the mat:
No Pat , no you didn’t. Even a driving god can’t drive through 18 inches of snow for 250 miles , are you the US version of UKT ?
Ha ha ha, I don’t mean I was driving through 18 inches on the highway FFS, I mean we had 18 inches of snow fall, at some points however it was about 6 - 8 inches deep on the roads and it is nothing to drive through that. I mean we don’t stop for it.
truckyboy:
Pat …how long did it take for your arse to heal after the caning .
That sod of a headmaster caned me quite a lot, he was a sadistic b*****d, I was in hospital for 6 weeks with a suspected brain tumour when I was 14 and after a lumbar puncture and spending 10 days flat on my back in pain, I had been allowed home on a weekend stay to be returned to hospital the following Monday, the headmaster came to the house to see me, he walked into our living room where I was laying down and shouted “STAND UP WHEN I WALK INTO THE ROOM BOY”
My mother chewed him anew ■■■ and told him to get the hell out of the house LOL.
Snow scares me a bit to be honest in case someone hits me with a snowball and I fall over
Pat Hasler:
flat to the mat:
No Pat , no you didn’t. Even a driving god can’t drive through 18 inches of snow for 250 miles , are you the US version of UKT ?Ha ha ha, I don’t mean I was driving through 18 inches on the highway FFS, I mean we had 18 inches of snow fall, at some points however it was about 6 - 8 inches deep on the roads and it is nothing to drive through that. I mean we don’t stop for it.
Yeah , we’re meant to be getting half a metre over the next couple of days , have to see what happens I guess . Roll on Spring eh
After I told some security womble about the perils of frozen washer jets and salt on the windscreen, he asked “why can’t they put heating elements under the roads to melt it all?”.
I gave him a look, like a eureka type of look, and said “bloody hell mate, you should send that idea to the highways agency, you’ll make your millions from that”.
“You reckon?” he asked.
“Definitely” I quipped.
ezydriver:
After I told some security womble about the perils of frozen washer jets and salt on the windscreen, he asked “why can’t they put heating elements under the roads to melt it all?”.I gave him a look, like a eureka type of look, and said “bloody hell mate, you should send that idea to the highways agency, you’ll make your millions from that”.
“You reckon?” he asked.
“Definitely” I quipped.
There’s an easy cure for frozen washer jets and mucky windscreen by the way. Proper winter screen wash, neat, good for -10 C minimum, -20 or better for preference 
That’s only if you drive the same wagon all the time. If not ignore that, because someone will fill the washer bottle with water so and watered down -10 will freeze almost as quickly as just water.
I was posted to RAF Wildenrath, with the Royal Corps of Signals, in the early 80s.
The main runway there was the emergency runway for Dusseldorf Airport, as well as the main BAOR trooping airfield, so it had to be kept clear at all costs.
They had actually installed electrical heating under that runway. When the switch was thrown to heat it up, the electricery meter motors burnt out they were spinning so fast 
We used big rotary brushes mounted on the front of trucks. We also had a jet engine mounted on a frame, on casters a bit like an old iron bedstead. This was hooked up to the front of a fuel bowser.
We would fire up the jet engine and drive up and down the runway, but only to clear away heavy ice. Most of the work was done by ploughs and the brushes, you don’t put grit on a runway btw.
My first winter there on snow clearing duties, it didn’t stop snowing for 3 weeks and was at -42degrees F, including wind chill factor. That was the same dry powdery snow as we’ve just been having.
This type of snow is easy to drive on. As already said, this stuff really will drift though. So in the short periods when it may have stopped laying fresh snow, the wind was drifting in new snow all the time anyway.
As a result, the ploughs and brushes were kept going 24 hrs a day, every day, for three weeks, except for shift changes and shortened meal breaks.
Those brushes are apparently made up of discs bolted together to make whatever width of brush is wanted. With them being use constantly, the bolts were vibrating loose. So every once in a while a brush would fly apart, to much hilarity of the other brush operators, then it would be their turn for their brush to fly apart. We all helped each other recover all the parts, among much ■■■■ taking of course.
flat to the mat:
Pat Hasler:
flat to the mat:
No Pat , no you didn’t. Even a driving god can’t drive through 18 inches of snow for 250 miles , are you the US version of UKT ?Ha ha ha, I don’t mean I was driving through 18 inches on the highway FFS, I mean we had 18 inches of snow fall, at some points however it was about 6 - 8 inches deep on the roads and it is nothing to drive through that. I mean we don’t stop for it.
Yeah
Yeah,i reckon we might get at least a week of summer this year,in between the rain and storms like last year
AndrewG:
Pat Hasler:
So I have been listening to the snow reports on BBC radio and others, it seems you are having it rough over there but are you not old enough to remember how bad it was years ago ? I remember living in the village of Maidford in Northomptonshire and being cut off for nearly a week, I was a pupil at Woodford Halse and the school bus could not get through, when it did on the fourth day of the school week I got the cane for not going to school, even though not one other pupil went, I was made an example of because in the words of that sadistic b*****d headmaster he couldn’t cane everyone, he had to select one to treat like crap. My Mum went mad.
Anyway, it may please you all to know that today alone we got over 18 inches of snow, I still drove through it for 250 miles to get to Ben & Jerry’s so you could all get your dam ice cream LOL. I did however refuse point blank to drop my trailer at a tank wash and bob tail home in it.Thorpe St. Andrew school Norwich around 77/78 heavy snow and still 99% of pupils got in and the school never shut no matter the weather. The old red Bristol half cab buses all made it through, taking the ones who lived in the sticks Blofield/Brundall/Hemblington back and forth. Even with a power cut it was coats on and carry on as usual…how times change…
Wouldn’t have got near any of those villages on Wednesday evening/Thursday, the wind saw to that with the drifting.
Down here in Cantley, I got back to the village from Lowestoft on Wednesday afternoon in 45 minutes, at the village sign I stopped. It then took me another 45 minutes to do the last 500 yards.
Tried getting out on Thursday morning, turned round by a JCB driver having been told “not a chance”.
Road was finally open mid afternoon on Thursday but still not great until Friday evening.
Just a thought, but on Friday night I saw no end of tractors and JCBs on the Midlands’ roads, as well as snowploughs/gritters. I even saw not 1, but 2 Amazon depots with John Deere machinery clearing snow from bays etc.
Who are these people? Savvy farmers seizing opportunities for earning an extra few bob? JCB owning citizens with a public conscience? Council employees doing their best under austerity budgets?
Count yourselves lucky with the UK snow , most has probably thawed by now . We had a couple more feet yesterday , trouble being we’re in minus temps for another month . All morning to clear the crap away , 4 of us with shovels, a snowblower , and finally a bobcat . Oh the joy