pretty much does what it says on the box, this post does. or states in the title, look you see, for those keen to be specific and note no box is involved here. we, as in the UK (not that i speak on behalf of the nation), had some snow this january (2026). such would be "the norm" or expected, yet of course it does take one or two by surprise. like, for example, how the Post Office / Royal Mail (split into two so one can simply blame the other when things go wrong) get a shock when christmas rolls around and all of a sudden lots of people use their services to send cards.
we, as in here in the (somewhat lower reaches of) the north east, didn't get all that much snow. certainly not compared to other areas, and at least not so (or "thus") far. as would be standard Scotland got quite battered, and somewhat unusually down south took a pasting. in terms of the latter normally the higher level of humidity there (i think) means that they generally don't get as much as we do. but, still the snow came and still, thus (or "so) far, we have survived it.
many things that would be usual (or the standard) happened with the imminent arrival of snow. by that i do of course mean that the press (or what remains of it) went ape, having a brain melt, all in anticipation of it. reports were that temperatures would fall to around minus one thousand of whatever measurement you care to use, that the country would be destroyed by the snow and we could all, with some confidence, expect to be dead. once this (decidedly) did not happen they of course just casually moved on to stories about Americans shooting each other, Americans having ambitions (or designs) to invade some place i am quietly confident most cannot find on a map and people in Iran (country, not the song off of A Flock Of Seagulls) being quite cross about something or other.
indeed i have probably put far too many images and videos (yes, we have a video) on here for this post, so expect waffle and what have you around them. still, this might be interesting for people that for whatever reason quite like looking at pictures of snow. certainly it is, even if just a light sprinkling of the stuff, better to experience it as something to look at rather than live with.
the above image, which isn't all that bad compared to the usual quality i opt to share, was taken on my usual strolls from the village train station to go and see the boys. which means yes, despite the easiest of excuses for them not to actually run the trains actually ran at a time of not perfect weather conditions. well done you, train people, for just doing the job you exist to do and get paid a lot to every now and then actually do. glad, of course, that they did.
effort was made (as you can see in the picture) to clear the road, so that cars would have a reasonable chance of being driven safely. not so the footpath, as i have every confidence that you can see. the paths not being cleared has become "a bit of an issue" for some, especially near my lodgings in this era of exile, with complaints being posted all over social media stuff. apparently, in terms of responses to this, it is so that councils "would like" to clear paths too, but "cannot" due to how doing such would somehow make them "legally liable" if someone fell and hurt themselves on paths they had cleared. oh. well, would they not be liable for such anyway?
usual disclaimer for the above video, then, in as far as smoking is quite bad for you and you should not smoke, or if you do you should seek to quit. fascinating how society has been quietly conditioned over the last quarter of a century to believe the cigarettes are the cause of all flaws and folly in the world. anyway, no i was not going to include this video, showing as it does my plight in trying to have a cigarette (sorry) in the snow. however, my brother was quite taken by how a snowflake (actual, and not a reference to someone overtly sensitive) landed on the lens as i filmed. if for some reason you actively seek out videos of snowflakes landing on lenses unexpectedly, you are very welcome.
from a train that actually ran during the snow is, of course, the answer to where that image above was taken from. if you were inclined to ask. quite a famous, celebrated or well known landmark that is, or for the sake of google and other search engines Roseberry Topping. certainly not a bad picture, that, but i dare say many others will have flocked to the place with tripods and much more better cameras to go and take a million pictures.
one thing that has always kind of puzzled me is how come photographers, be it of a professional (as in they do it for a living) or keen amateur status, always insist on having themselves holding a camera up on profile pictures for social media accounts. i cannot think of any other profession where one insists on including the tools of their trade in their "avatar" or what have you. were i to hold up items relating to what i consider to be my hobbies on such social media profiles i wouldn't be at all surprised if i ended up getting banned off of most of them. yes, other things puzzle me too.
a bit more video above, and indeed what might be of interest to some. consider it a kind of "reward" for making it this far into this particular post. for clarification, yes, that is the River Tees (reasonably close to my lodgings in this era of exile) and it is very much frozen over. likely not "deeply" or otherwise substantially frozen over, but frozen over all the same.
the point of interest, or if you will focus, of the above is of course the plight of swans in their all of a sudden now frozen natural environment. mostly, going on what i could see, they managed to cope with it rather well. almost as if they were aware that such things could and (probably) would happen and were able to manage. often it is so that we humans can learn from nature, but we do not. should it be that for some reason you wished to see swans on a frozen river but as an image rather than a video, well, below is an image that kind of meets such a wish.
something you can usually expect (or count on) is, as and when snow comes to us here, people asking why we are "not prepared" for it. recently one of the radio presenters i quite like addressed this, especially when what was "on the table" (metaphorically, i believe) was the usual argument about how is it that Norway "deals with the snow" in a much more better way than us. normally this radio presenter would be all "why oh why" (with an exasperated voice) about anything, but in this instance it was all just good sense. realistically each year we in the UK rarely get more than a week or so of snow, and so it would not be practical or viable to have the resources stored away for dealing with it. sure, it is very much true that Scotland gets it more than that, hence them having a decent amount more resources for it than the rest of the UK. over in Norway they get a load more snow for a lot longer, and so it would make sense for all their infrastructure and resources to be set to deal with that.
generally the idea for dealing with snow here in the UK is that everyone just "uses common sense", as in doesn't go off making unnecessary journeys, are slow, steady and careful when they do and accept that it all will (pretty soon) pass. mostly this actually (sort of) works, especially on the roads. one would reasonably expect carnage whilst driving, but usually the majority behave.
one more video, then, of the swans doing their thing. i am not sure it's stretching things to say, rather than simply suggest, that this will be one of the more interesting parts of this post.
righty-ho, i do believe that that's (more or less) as far as i can stretch some writing around all of this. by the time this "hits" the internet either the snow shall have gone or we will have been covered with yet more of it. truth be told i would prefer the former, but if the latter i am sure we shall deal with it.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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