Snow + Unpreparedness = Chaos!

Technorati tags: Travels, UK, England, Heavy Snow, Chaos

Sorry for the silence this past week. As some of you may be aware, Walski's in the UK for some work-related stuff (plus a short holiday afterwards). It would have been an excellent trip, except for a couple of unexpected things happening:

• Walski came down with the flu - which is totally not fun when it's an average of 3 down to -1 °C
• After recovering from the flu, Walski developed a nasty tooth abcess (inside the gum), which, in addition to the obligatory throbbing toothache from Hades, caused one side of his face looking like Rocky Balboa on a bad night in the ring. This time Walski had no choice but to resort to some anti-biotics (and thank God for the British NHS), something he usually avoids, unless absolutely necessary.

And then, it started to snow.

Bridport in Dorset, South-West England, where snow is not something you normally see

Heavily - the most snow south-eastern England has seen in 18 years or so. How's that for timing, eh, luv?

Which is something Walski actually wanted (badly), since it's been over 10 years since he's seen white stuff - and there's truly nothing more beautiful than to watch snow fall. But don't tell that to the Brits, though.

Strangely enough, the last two days of snow has literally brought England to a grinding halt. Granted, it's the coldest winter in 18 years. But being this unprepared to cope with heavy snow is something that Walski has found rather dumbfounding.

It's one thing if it started snowing in Kuala Lumpur all of a sudden. But London? 
(large amounts of snow in London, and more, in the full post)

London, apparently, doesn't have enough infrastructure put into place to cope with heavy snow, like it's seen in the last two days. BBC reported all kinds of public transportation problems around London - buses unable to run, and even some parts of the Underground going out of service!

And you can just imagine the kind of mayhem it must have caused. London relies on its public transportation system for it to function properly. Yesterday and today, services were still not running 100%, and it is believed that nationwide, the economic cost of the 2-day snow-a-thon has breached £1 Billion! And that's probably the last thing that the British economy needs right now.

Granted, the Brits can be really whiny sometimes, but there are valid grouses abound that the way critical transport services responded to the adverse weather has left a lot to be desired.

Stoned cold Monday in Bridport...

Fortunately for Walski, the work part of the trip has finished, and he is merely chilling out with the family for the next couple of days, before heading back to KL. His biggest worry now is that the flight will be able to leave on time.

Or at all.

Oh, well... let's not count our worry-chickens before they're hatched, eh, luv? We'll surely cross that bridge when we have to. Which is in about 48 hrs time or so.