I doubt if many outside the UK actually understand the importance of the shipping forecast in UK culture. The rhythm and poetry of area names is a delight.
I think there was a gap of at least 20yrs between the 87 storm and the flood of weather warnings we get these days. We even seem to get more warnings now than we did 5 yrs ago. Even some bloke standing next to a frosty car on tv this morning saying how cold it is.
When we used to load ships with cargo that had to be keaped dry we would allway speak to the captin and he/she would keep the raydar going so we could seen if rain was about, allway thought about getting an old ships raydar just to have at home
I was working in Norway and spoke to my mum here in norwich about the weather. She told me it was a standstill because of a couple of inches of snow, so I took a photo and sent it to her, showing a car with several feet of snow on top and explained how everything just carried on as normal.
Someone was talking about bad guys constantly being let loose. These two characters were out on bail for previous thefts! "This man and woman accused of doing this 300 times in Halton, Hamilton, Niagara and Toronto found a way to make it even more gross, disturbing and evil, according to police. This story is 18-karat crazy in which the accused couple are alleged to have removed jewelry from bodies resting inside GTA mausoleums. “The thefts took place during daytime hours” in which “the accused would attend a cemetery and enter the mausoleums,” Halton Regional Police said in announcing the arrests. “Once inside, they would (allegedly) use a tool to enter niche compartments and steal jewelry or other valuables. “ Discarded the human remains It’s right out of a horror movie. But it gets even worse. “The accused often stole necklaces and other jewelry that contained human remains, which were discarded by the thieves after the thefts,” said police. “The stolen jewelry was then sold at pawnshops or through private sales.” This is horrific. Removing from a casket body parts with jewelry intact is not an image easy to stomach. But it’s what police allege occurred and why Halton cops, along with Toronto Police, Hamilton Police and Niagara Regional Police, focused on the lack of dignity toward human bodies with the very serious charges they laid." We've got a real problem here with criminals regularly being given bail and running around doing more harm while waiting a long time to get to trial. I cannot imagine taking a hand off of a corpse so as to later remove a ring.
I forgot to mention Halton (the coppers who made the arrests) Police is my county. One of the graveyards is where relatives are buried and I attended many goodbyes there. Luckily nobody I know would get buried with their jewelry or in a crypt or vault. They all went into the dirt.
I don't hear it now but grew up listening to it. I live just minutes away from the Cromarty Firth and always wondered what it was like when I was a youngster.
Well yes - that's the difference between a country that always has snow, and one that rarely gets it. There's no point us owning a lot of snow ploughs etc which would rarely be used and still need constant maintenance.
On the other hand @Escarpment, snow does happen every now and again and it's poor economic planning and management to let it grind things to a halt. All councils need to have contingency plans for gritting and drivers should be taught about using low gear for extra traction and having decent/appropriate tyres in winter. We always had winter tyres fitted in Belgium as they give better grip in wet winters, not just snow and ice. In some parts of France they are compulsory.
In the old days we used to be cut off for two or three days each year by snow until the farmer down the road used to go out with his sugar beet shovel and it threw the snow to one side. That way his workers could get to work. I could then get to work by putting snow chains on the car. I got rid of the chains at least 30 years ago as we now don't get enough snow to bother. The head of the county Highways department said that they can't afford to have snow ploughs but do go out gritting if the forecast says it is necessary - which is almost never nowadays. Motorways still get snowploughs on them.
The real issue is that many councils have surrendered the O-licences due to the cost of running any HGV (not just snowploughs and gritters) - that is the reason that you very rarely see the street cleaning lorries or gully sucking lorries now. Some bright spark thought it would be better to outsource that to contractors, so the likes of 'Lanes for Drains' are the ones to jet and suck out gulllies. The problem with that, is that many councils used to have multi-use vehicles, so the street cleaning lorries could have their brushes unbolted and have ploughs bolted onto the front; gritters had removable rear bodies that during the summer became flatbed/sided for carrying the heavy equipment used by parks and gardens or road maintenance teams. Of course, that required in house maintenance, vehicle testing etc etc. As soon as those different uses were broken up into different contracts, the cost of gritting/ploughing stood on it's own on the balance sheet and looked too expensive to be worthwhile. The contractors that cut grass etc during the summer simply lay staff off over winter (I know this as one of Lisa's uncles does exactly that as a job) and they are not willing to bear the cost or risks of adapting their vehicles to plough snow. This sort of creeping erosion of services in the name of saving money affects so many things - yet ironically, seems to cost us more.
Heard on the local news last night that some school my have to close because of less bums on seats, looks like the populaion is dropping, @pete
When my mother was growing up, 30s, 40s, on farms in the Lincolnshire Wolds sometimes they would be cut off for a couple of weeks or more; as a result they held a couple of months of dried goods, home bottled fruit, bacon and other salt meat, eggs came from the farm, root veg and onions would be stored either in the cellar or a clamp not far from the back door. There could be as many as 15 people in the farm house 11 family members and a number of unmarried farm workers. Around 2010 a nursery owner in the hills above Honiton was cut off completely for several days until a farmer could get his tractor up the lane. Then it was over a week before they could get their car out and a further week or two before they could load the Transit van and get out to the markets they sold at.
I don't consider any caterpillars a nuisance. OK, so the Winer prediction species is the one that has a orange brown center and black at each end, sure they have a name but don't know it now. Anyway, that caterpillar is what we use to let us know here the type of winter we will have, and so far for all these years they are correct. In general, I don't see any prolific caterpillars here, guess my birds take care of that, just like I don't get my Hosta's eaten up as I have no slugs. Found this------https://youtu.be/mSu12XQb3nk?si=H2619lAv5Sq1RQmJ
