I think we all know the contents of a nice, traditional British conversation:
1. Moaning
2. Weather
3. Moaning about the weather
It is the British way!
Despite centuries of this fare country being wet and miserable we don’t seem to get used to the idea. It is still a shock to us when we leave the house in March and find that we can’t wear our flip-flops and shorts just yet (and must go back upstairs to change … that might be just me). Then we complain a little bit more, as if Jack Frost himself has stolen the summer time from us. It never changes.
I’d be lying if I said I didn't like a good moan like the next guy, but we have to admit that we do go overboard. We don’t actually have it that bad compared to other countries, it is just that they seem to handle it better.
Take, for example, this article of drivers being stranded for up to 15 hours due to snows. Dreadful you think as you read, but bear in mind that this chaos was caused by four inches of snow. FOUR INCHES!
Now I’m not saying this can’t ruin things for people, but you should be able to find a way around it.
Take a look at Boston, Massachusetts in the US which in February saw two feet of snow fall in just 9 hours.
Recently a man in China left his car parked under a bridge and a bright, sunny day. When he returned the next morning he found this:
In this instance the underside of the bridge had frozen over with a solid patch of ice. The driver, Chen Lin, parked directly under this ice just as it was beginning the thaw in the newly outed sun, and rather than melt it came down intact, covering the vehicle. Then, to add insult to injury, the sun went away and the ice refroze, trapping the car.
Then there was Chicago, which proved fire and ice can indeed mix.
Responding to a huge fire at a warehouse, local fire fighters put their hoses to work tackling the blaze in freezing temperatures. Not an unusual story you may think, but this is what that warehouse looked like afterwards:
So, spare a thought for the colder places around the world. They have it much worse than us!
