I am again embarrassed to be a Brit for the second time in a fortnight. Last night it snowed again, probably about an inch and the temperature dropped leaving the place very icy this morning, with some dangerous roads. But most roads are passable if you drive carefully at the correct speed for the road, your vehicle and your level of driving expertise.
So what happens? Many of our schools are closed again because it is felt that it is "not safe for staff or pupils" What the hell is going on here? Why don't people just go to work and go to school? So they might fall over on the ice. So what? They are not going to die! My goodness if I had missed school every day it was icy I would never have learnt anything! And nor would any other children in North West Europe or Canada or anywhere else that's cold. Clearly our current batch of headteachers are frightened to take a stand, to make any kind of decision other than a scared one.
What happened to the Dunkirk spirit? What happened to struggle over adversity? What happened to ORDINARY COMMON SENSE???????????
I fear we are teaching our children to be complete cowards, frightened to take the smallest risk. We are teaching a nation to grow up like the Mavis character on Coronation Street - "Oooh, I don't really knoooww." Great, what a future to look forward to.
I must not forget to add, both Squeaky and I have suffered injuries from the weather. He was walking the dog yesterday when he fell over, whereupon Patchwork dog carried on walking/bouncing and poor Squeaky didn't think to let go of the lead. Heaven knows why as he usually drops it at the least pause in concentration, but not today. So dog bounces away and drags poor Squeaky boy behind her through the lumpy hard snow. Much crying and bruised faces and noses and wet clothes. Huge cuddles needed.
And stupid, stupid me! I was shovelling snow on Saturday morning. Just on the last 5 minutes. Aha, a great piece of ice, let's just move that away and then I'll be finished. Too hard to break it into pieces, let's just lift the big heavy ice in one piece and throw it over..... AAARRRGGGHH! And there I was, doubled over the shovel, my back knackered. And only just having had it expensively put back together again by the wonderful Patt (Here's her website, she is AMAZING! http://www.pattstock.co.uk/)
It is VERY irritating!
Monday 9 February 2009
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I would have loved to have had school cancelled so easily when I was a child. I live in Northern Indiana, and we get tons of lake effect snow, but our school never got cancelled. We would have to go even if it was practically a blizzard - and I would sit on the school bus feeling bitter that we never got snow days :)
ReplyDeleteI think part of the problem with UK it that a lot of it is very rural , with narrow, winding roads, hilly etc. So vehicles find it difficult to negotiate if it is at all icy. And being an island, we do get great dumps of snow, many inches at a time, which we cannot clear quickly enough.
ReplyDeleteSiffice to say though, no new snow last night so the headmasters were forced to open the schools, despite the roads being the worst yet - treacherously icy! My son's nursery has been open every single day - commercial enterprise you see!