Feckin' Weather

Looks like the decision has been taken out of her hands. Schools close. What a joke we have become.

VB

I would have agreed about how ridiculous closing the schools is. However, I had to deal with a very upset 13 year old daughter who witnessed a boy in her school suffer a very nasty compound fracture of his leg when he slipped and fell down the steps leading from a footbridge at the school. “His foot was pointing the wrong way” was one of the highlights…:mask:.

I’m sorry for the lad with the broken leg, and for your daughter’s upset (the last time I saw someone with his limbs all over the place was a dead motorcyclist and one of the first things the ambulance crew did was to get me and another bystander to hold a blanket up to stop the rest of the crowd seeing what might spill out when they cut his clothes open). But sooner or later accidents happen to or near all of us, as Paul @loo knows tragically well. If 0.1% of the kids were being injured at school then that would be a no-brainer. We should close the schools. But I’ll bet it’s nowhere near that. And the kids down the street from me have only just gone back indoors from creating a slide in the car park next door. So would they be safer at their school desks or safer larking about outside ?

Among many other issues, they close the schools because they don’t want to take responsibility for the children, even if doing so would mean that the children were safer than if they were at home. We’ve also become much more dependent on the road system for everything, and at the same time much more reluctant to pay for keeping it open when it snows. When I was young it snowed a lot more often so the sensible balance point was different.

The really telling thing though is that while the state schools will be closed I’d be willing to bet nothing else will be. The private school where my niece went and where my friend’s daughter still goes is open today https://www.shsk.org.uk/News/WEATHER-UPDATE-Friday-1-February.aspx. Sainsbury’s staff will get in. I saw another neighbour, a ladies’ hairdresser, trudging her way to work at 08:15. As long as someone else hasn’t blocked your only road you can do it.

VB

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I think I should start heading back home now before it gets too deep…

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Around 20mm in Worcester, thawing rapidly.

You’d be safer staying put Rob. All that horsepower through the wheels of the Vectra, a simple sneeze and slip of the right foot could be deadly…

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I absolutely agree. I really was trying to say that the broken leg incident would give me pause for thought, but that the school should carry on. The accident occurred because no gritting was done. This is true around all the pavements and roads in my area.

It was lethal for the elderly and infirm for a few days here as nothing was done about the snow and ice. We did a bit of shopping for a bunch of our elderly neighbours and knocked on a few doors to make sure all were OK. The fact that the leaves weren’t cleared (either by the council or some of the less socially aware locals) in the Autumn and so have frozen into a horrible slime doesn’t hep matters.

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That photo was taken last year :smirk:

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Oh no it wasn’t…

:grin:

The other thing about schools is whether the teachers can get in. Often they live some way away, and the head may take a decision based on the likely number of teachers arriving for work.

Both my kids are at school today though, which is good.

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I fell on ice when I was 13 at school, walking calmly out at lunchtime. My hand ended up at right angles to my wrist, an operation was required. I now walk on ice like bambi.

Mine were off on Wednesday.

They are little shits to get out of bed on a school day, but, amazingly, the second the tweet came through from school they both shot out of bed and were pulling on their ski suits…

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Oh deer! :grin:

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:face_with_monocle:

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Buck off! :grin:

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:rage:

few cms here - strangely, Great Northern are doing ok today…

Is golden snow like yellow snow?

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