Still snowy

We haven't had any more snow since the 1st, but it's still causing problems. Snow ploughs have been out clearing the roads; the fact that H had never seen one before shows you how unusual that is! Ploughed roads are now clear enough to drive on easily, but there's one slight snag; the snow ploughs create big banks of snow at the sides of the roads, making already narrow roads even narrower. The road in front of our house now poses no problems at all for a single car, but when 2 meet someone has to reverse a long way or everyone leaps out with their shovels and starts digging out a passing place...


Yesterday I ventured out on foot to our second-nearest supermarket. We weren't in desperate need of supplies but it was H's last day off work and I realised that if I didn't go then I would have to go today or tomorrow - with K...

It was a good chance to see what was going on too. Next to the supermarket is one of the biggest roads around here, with 2 lanes each way. Traffic was moving easily, but again the road was significantly narrowed:

Smaller roads were clear just in the tyre tracks - 4 tracks if you were lucky, 3 tracks on narrower roads and here, where a car had been abandoned, it went down to just 2:

The very smallest roads though were still pretty much impassable. Believe it or not, this next one is actually usually used by cars; look very closely and you'll see a car parked at the end of it:

Today was the first working day of the year for a lot of people, including H. He usually goes to work by bus but the buses still weren't running today, due I suppose to the narrowed roads. So poor old H set off on foot, a distance of 5 or 6 kilometres. He returned home tonight with stories of downed electric cables and a collapsed car port, a blister or two and, of course, photographic evidence of his adventure. Here's the route he would normally take if walking into town...

... and here's the less snowy option he chose today. This is the road his bus would have taken too, if it had been running...

Even in the centre of the city, where the traffic was moving steadily, it was still tough for pedestrians. The pavements were pretty deep in snow and crossing the road meant navigating your way over huge mounds of snow at the edges of the road:

Apparently the buses still won't be running tomorrow, although rubbish collection will be. H's planning to try the train tomorrow; by the time he walks to the station, waits for the train and then walks from the station to his office, it won't really save him any time, but hopefully it'll give his feet a bit of a rest...