HeeHoo and I always planned to 'Follow the Sun' in our dotage but fate has had us hidden securely under snowdrifts for the last five months...
Texas has been in the grip of some scary snowstorms for the last ten days. It has been a litany of no power, no water due to frozen pipes, icy slippery roads, shops closed because of the icy conditions. Usually beautiful and sunny, Texas has been snow white in knee deep snow, as far as the eye can see, such an odd transformation, and with no clue as to how to deal with this phenomena as it is such a rare occurrence.
Having recently come from beautiful Sweden, we could see just how ill equipped Texas is to cope with this weather. In Sweden, every pipe is clad from top to bottom in some sort of insulating material resembling that of a scuba divers suit. The homes have extensive radiators in each room.
The trusty snow plough arrives twice daily, clanging and banging along every single road, moving the ice not only off the roads, but also from the sidewalks and paths. Pedestrians play a big part of life in Sweden, and the snow ploughs are followed lustily, (usually at 4.00 am) by the grit scattering machine which stops one from slipping in icy conditions.
By law every Swedish vehicle is obliged to change all their tyres to snow tires by the middle of October I think it is. 'Snow Etiquette' is a big thing in Sweden, one does not only scrape the ice off one's windscreen, the Good Swede removes every scrap of snow from his vehicle, to avoid it blowing off and being a nuisance to pedestrians and other vehicles!!
Every Swedish home has a snow room, which houses all coats, umbrellas and boots, scarves, hats and gloves, and one enters the house, removes all of ones outer clothes and shoes, and never, never wears ones shoes into the rest of the house!!
Dressing to go out in the snow in Sweden is an art like no other. One abides strictly by the 'three layer rule'. A thermal inner layer, another pure wool layer, and then one's 100 percent down top layer! One is never 'cold' in Sweden, one is just 'incorrectly dressed'!!
We discovered the perfect way to dress our feisty four year old grandson, for pre school. We would put him outside the front door for a few seconds, and he would rush in quite willing to don his three layers, an all-in-one snow suit, plus two layers of gloves, a neck warmer, a woolly hat, thick woollen socks and his snow boots!!
As for stockpiling!! The Swedes would never do anything as undignified as 'Stockpiling'. Milk has been in short supply now for a week in Dallas as the supply chain has broken down and what little milk that reaches the shelves is snapped up !
FORTUNATELY It seems as if Snowmaggedon in Texas is over. The last seven days were brutal but something else was going on. People didn't just drive past the homeless anymore but stopped and took them to shelters or to hospitals if frostbite had set in. People shared the wood they had prepared for themselves for winter. Churches opened their doors wide providing food and water. Restaurant's that had been struggling under Covid took meals to first responders. No one asked are you a Republican or a Democrat, a Baptist or a Catholic For seven broken, beautiful days we were just people. A blanket of white covered us all.