Right now in London we have settled snow on the ground and a flurry of flakes swirling in the sky. Needless to say, our transport system is not running smoothly. Back in January 2007, I was in St Andrews for a few days to sit my Social Anthropology exam - we got most of January off and just had to return to Scotland if we had exams - and the day after my exam, in very icy and snowy weather, I was lucky enough to catch the last train heading south before all the trains were cancelled for about two days.
South of the border there was no snow, but severe gales instead. I got as far as York before the train was cancelled. Luckily, my parents live as close to York as they do Leeds which is where I was supposed to be alighting, so it wasn't too painful getting home. The poor people who were going all the way down to London however were snookered as no trains whatsoever were running from York.
We made it home from the station, passing blown over lorries on the country roads, and the next day Dad and I flew out to Prague from
Robin Hood airport. The first half of the week was freezing. At the worst point the temperature dropped to -15°C, but felt like -25°C. In the second half of the week Prague had snow - proper snow - but the city still ran. Prague is used to it though. The gritters were out on the roads straight away, planes were still flying and there were no public transport problems.
After our week in Prague we headed back to the airport in a blizzard (the photo below doesn't do the conditions justice). Snow was piled up at either side of the runway, a few metres deep, but we were on the plane and off. Yes, we did have to be de-iced and refuelled because things were running a little bit slower than usual, but we only were only delayed by about an hour. If this was the UK, I dread to think how long we would have been stuck at the airport. UK, take note!
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