Galanthus Events 2009

[Alan_b]

How cold is it there? And how much snow? No need to respond if above -5c or less than 10 inches.

johnw

John, you have no idea how little snow it takes to bring massive disruption to road and rail transport in the UK.  We are not used to it so lorry (truck) drivers Jack-knife their lorries and block roads and motorways.  And we don't have the snow ploughs to clear it up in much of the country because snowfalls are so infrequent.  There is a classic line from a rail spokesman that the automatic doors on their rolling stock would not close because we had "the wrong type of snow".  I can only speak for the south of England but here any type of snow is the wrong type of snow!

[David Nicholson]

Just had a phone call from my son who works in London where there is a couple of inches of snow this morning. The Northern tube line was not running, there were no buses, and he walked from Kilburn to Baker Street tube station before picking up a Metropolitan tube to get him to Westminster. On the roads buses and cars appeared to be running fairly normally! We couldn't organise a booze up in a brewery

[KentGardener]

We couldn't organise a booze up in a brewery

I am sure I could.  hic! 

John

[Anthony Darby]

I'll join you John. In Feb 1987 we had a foot of snow. Then I lived in Polmont, about 3 miles from my school. I left the house, by car, at 8.15 a.m. About half a mile from the school, where a roundabout wasn't, there was a dip which led up to a railway bridge over the road (the "skew" bridge). Vehicles were going down and up one at a time. I got to school at 10.15 a.m. just in time to meet all my colleugues leaving! I spent the rest of the day in the Whiteside Hotel near my house. By 7 p.m. my friends and I had spent all our cash and decided to cash a cheque. The owner's son said, in future boys, pay by cash. We never went back. It's not a pub anymore. The school was closed for a week.

[David Quinton]

Brandy Mount Snowdrop day on Wednesday 4th February has been cancelled due to the snow. 

Anyone contemplating visiting on Saturady 7th and Sunday 8th February are advised to phone before travelling.

[johnw]

Alan - I was once traveling by rail from Amsterdam to Antwerp and when we got near Rosendal the train came to a halt and sat "until the snow subsided". There wasn't a quarter of an inch ion the ground and after 20 minutes it had melted into the ground. Then away we went.

I have seen your snowploughs and there are too light for any amount of snow. But what would cope with this?  St. Anthony's, Newfoundland a few years ago.

johnw

[ian mcenery]

Alan - I was once traveling by rail from Amsterdam to Antwerp and when we got near Rosendal the train came to a halt and sat "until the snow subsided". There wasn't a quarter of an inch ion the ground and after 20 minutes it had melted into the ground. Then away we went.

I have seen your snowploughs and there are too light for any amount of snow. But what would cope with this?  St. Anthony's, Newfoundland a few years ago.

johnw

I think it is attitude not the conditions. I went to school in the fifties and never ever had a day off due to snow or bad weather or lack of heating or anything. I rode a motorbike to work through the winter of 1963 (coldest recorded for us 3 months without going above freezing) without proper cold weather gear because that was what was expected. I  got cold and came off a couple of times but gave it little thought. I sometimes wonder whether we haven't just turned into a nation of wimps

Except of course in Newcastle where such weather means the need for a short sleeved tee shirt 

[David Nicholson]

 

[Paddy Tobin]

Weather can be deceiving. My brother has a friend from the Middle East who has visited since the early 1970s. When first he came here he would regularly leave the house in a short-sleeved shirt on a sunny day in January not understanding that just because the sun was shining it was still cold. He would get about 50 metres and return cursing the strange Irish weather.

Conversely, last summer I walked about on the top of the Schilthorn - the James Bond revolving restaurant in Switzerland - in sandals, shorts and shirt in a foot of fresh snow and found it perfectly comfortable.

Paddy

[ian mcenery]

Conversely, last summer I walked about on the top of the Schilthorn - the James Bond revolving restaurant in Switzerland - in sandals, shorts and shirt in a foot of fresh snow and found it perfectly comfortable.

Paddy

Paddy are you originally from Newcastle then   

[art600]

 

[steve owen]

Galanthus platyphyllus is a late flowerer. Mine aren't even close to the surface of the compost yet. They are very distinctive with little or no sinus notch on the inner petals.

If it is not platyphyllus, what could it be?  If it is platyphyllus then somebody has a stock of a much earlier flowering form.  Nobody at Wisley could/would tell me who supplied these snowdrops. 

Perhaps its a duck-billed platyphyllus.
Which bring me onto the latest from grand-daughter 1 (aged 6);
Q. What goes "quack quack miaoww"?
A: A plat-billed duckypuss.
Sorry. Its all this snow.

[KentGardener]

Q. What goes "quack quack miaoww"?
A: A plat-billed duckypuss.
Sorry. Its all this snow.

Ho ho!   

I remember being told one at school (all those years ago) - I can't remember the actual joke (sorry  ) - but the punchline was 'Duck filled fatty puss'. 

John

[Paddy Tobin]

Conversely, last summer I walked about on the top of the Schilthorn - the James Bond revolving restaurant in Switzerland - in sandals, shorts and shirt in a foot of fresh snow and found it perfectly comfortable.

Paddy

Paddy are you originally from Newcastle then   

Not at all, Ian, made of tougher stuff altogether!

Paddy

[Anthony Darby]

That I can believe Paddy. My granny on my mother's side was from Ireland. Her mother was still cycling to church at the age of 90. I think it was the red hot poker in her weekly Guinness that did it?