The Great UK Freeze Begins to Thaw

I woke up this morning about 6am to the sound of some rain on the windows, "that", I thought to myself "is the end of the snow".

Sure enough once the sun was up enough to shed some light, you could clearly see that the tyre grooves in the compacted snow & ice were showing the road surface.

At lunch time Ying & I had a walk up the street and stepping on what had been deep, firm, dry snow was now soft and very wet slush. Everywhere you walk your feet slip as chunks of semi solid ice give way under foot. Ying saw a young lad of about 6 go for a tumble.

Without gum boots (wellies as they are known here) your feet are wet very soon.

With the temperatures expected to get as high as 6 degrees tomorrow and the following 2 days, we shall soon have no snow left, but plenty of water flowing into the Thames water system.

At least life will get back to normal and the fair weather flyers from Gatwick can get back to normal.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from The World of Brad and Ying

We Got Stood Up

At 5am this morning we woke up to some 3cm fresh snow - bad sign! Having fully booked and packed, we left for the airport regardless.

We managed to arrive at the Gatwick south terminal at 7:15am. The security check was the smoothest journey ever as there was surprisingly no queue! Our flight was due 9am to Athens, so all was good at that point.

As soon as arriving on the other side of custom, we found ourselves join the other thousands of passengers whose flights have been delayed due to the "disruption" of the weather condition. We sat down and soon heard some flights already got cancelled. But ours was still delayed according to the big board. We were happy to wait for a while as long as we could still go.

We turned on the laptop to do some work whilst waiting for updates. 3 hours later, the news arrived - all the Easyjet flights scheduled before 11:30am were cancelled! So that was it, no holiday for us after all.

We heard Gatwick airport was to remain close until 4pm. Thousands of passengers travel plan was ruined, we were not alone. Easyjet offered its passengers either transfer to another available flight free of charge or a full refund. We took the latter choice, but it took us a while to confirm that our return leg will also be subject to refund. Hurray! Though we have no idea when the refund will reach us.

Next we went on to cancel car park booking and Athens hotel booking. We didn't expect to get any refund from either of them according to their terms and conditions. But good luck must be with us, after we explaining what happened, the hotel decided to charge us nothing (Hotel Cecil - will certainly stay with them next time) and the car park only charged us one day rate! God bless them for being nice and understanding!

I celebrated this "failed" holiday by clearing the snow in the front of the house with a heavy shovel!

Book a Seat for Your Wedding Cake

Looking to see if our flight to Athens was going to be cancelled due to the snow or not, we looked up the Easyjet Flight Check Status and very surprised to see that people who were looking to see if their flight was cancelled were also searching for seats for their wedding cakes!?

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Will England's Inability to Deal With Snow Damage Tourism?

The impact of the snow & ice in the UK over the past will have a pretty big cost in terms of lost productivity, but judging from some websites and stories I've seen recently, the impact will also be on tourism as the world looks at the incompetence of authorities here in dealing with a week of ice & snow.

We are pretty much as far north as any other country (except Iceland & Greenland), so you would pretty much expect that snow happens. The government, local government and the private sector have all shown themselves ill-prepared and complacent. It seems odd to be so unprepared as it was this time last year that the same thing happened.  

Winter happens every year - maybe the government should plan for it before there are too many more people with stories like this one.

Posted via email from The World of Brad and Ying

Guildford to Godalming Walk Along River Wey

Late September last year we did a walk from Guildford to Godalming along the towpath of the river Wey. It's a very popular walk, which goes on for 5 miles one way.

The river Wey goes through the town centre of Guildford. This is the starting point of the walk.

Some open space is just 5 meters down the river where we used to work in summer when we first arrived as there was very good mobile phone signal. We thought that was the best office we've ever had.

Quite often the river is busy with activities.

This is one of those signs along the towpath in case you get lost.

We went through a few locks, watching how people open and close locks to let water in and out so that the boats can go past.

Lunch break:

The river keeps meandering quietly, a railway bridge ahead near the town Shalford.

Narrow canal boats parking on the river.

Near Godalming, we deserve a break:

After 3 hours walk, we arrived at Godalming. We were planning to catch the train back to Guildford, but train service was cancelled that day, we caught a bus instead.

Cool Igloo and Snow Man

Why You Don't Drive on Icy Roads

With the theme of the big winter freeze and icy roads everywhere, here is a lesson on why not to drive in extreme icy conditions - and also why bailing out of a moving car is not such a good idea!

The video was sent through by my serial comedy supplier - Uncle Robin - who is a conduit for all the comedy on the internet.

Quaint Old English Traditions - Poms Still Living in 1752

The English - steeped in ancient tradition so that even in 2010 it can feel like you are living in 1752!

One thing that I found annoying when we first started out here in Britain was pulling in to a giant Tesco or Sainsbury with a big Open 24 Hours sign out the front on a Sunday afternoon to do some shopping. We would walk up to the doors at say 4.15pm only to see a sign hanging - "Closed due to Sunday trading restrictions".

By law shops may only trade for 6 hours between the times of 10am & 6pm - most choose to trade between 10am & 4pm, as such a defacto time has been set for 10 - 4 to be the Sunday trading hours.

Like most Western countries, this was born from the old Christian "thou shalt not work on a Sunday because you must go to church" rules. But in a modern, multicultural society like the UK isn't that a bit old and out of touch?

Reading this article on Wikipedia it states that Sunday shopping wasn't even permissible at all until 1994! So much for a modern, market driven economy.

I don't go to church and I feel that if I want to do my grocery shopping at 5pm on a Sunday and that the grocery store wants to be open at 5pm on a Sunday then we should have the right to do so.

At least in Australia when Woolies or Coles have a sign that says `Open until 10pm everyday' it is actually open until 10pm - yes people, even on a  Sunday!

The other one I find particularly odd is the fact that the tax year begins on the 6th April and ends on the 5th April !? What is that about.

Not in tune with a calendar year - hey why even bother and make it tune with a calendar month?

Imagine doing your tax returns and needing to calculate interest paid, monthly statements won't help - you need a daily breakdown for the month of April.

Apparently it all has to do with the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752. It all boils down to the fact that the rest of Europe changed to the more accurate Gregorian calendar in 1582 and England not until 1752. This brought all the dates out of alignment. When the treasury wanted to change the dates to bring everything into alignment the landlords who thought they would miss out on 11 days worth income and banks who thought they would miss out on interest payments rebelled against it and stuck to their own time frames and bugger the rest of the population.

So 250 years later we still abide by the same rules applied by a small section section of society who rebelled against the rules.

Quaint - yes, but effective - I think not. Time to get with the 21st century HMRC.

You can read more about it on these sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_year#United_Kingdom

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/faqs/general.htm#7

http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/item/136288

Posted via email from The World of Brad and Ying

Ying's First Snow Angel

Ying made her first snow angel in the snow the other day just in the park near our place.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from The World of Brad and Ying

Guildford High Street in the News

Ying & I went for a walk in the snow to high street yesterday and saw a film crew parked at the top of the hill, we assumed they were doing a story on the snow, and we were right.

The video in this story has the opening shot and the closing few seconds showing Guildford High Street in the the snow (you can't miss the lovely old clock hanging out over the street).

There wasn't much snow built up in the high street due to the warmth of the shops, people, cars & buildings - but getting to High Street was a challenge.

Posted via email from The World of Brad and Ying