More stories from the frozen north!

The weather forecast last night warned that we could expect to wake up to 10 centimetres of snow this morning. So I was a little surprised to look out at around 8.30 am to find clear road and pavements and not even an awful lot of frost. And this after what they said was the coldest night of the year so far. Very few days remain to beat that record!

I decided to forego my morning run and replace it with a longish walk to the supermarket, possibly giving in and hopping on a bus if one came my way at the right time. The plan was to pick up the few things I needed, stuff you can’t buy at the local Co-op, and catch a bus back in time for a late breakfast at around 11.00. Well, that WAS the plan!

Off I went, just after 9.00. Five minutes down the road, maybe less, it started to snow. It wasn’t windy though and I was wearing my waterproof coat with a good hood. No problem! At 9.30 I paused at a bus stop and, lo and behold, along came a bus. The number and destination notices were covered in snow but there is only one bus at that time of day along that route. Besides, rush hour was now officially over and I could travel free. So I hopped on board!

Our bus travels a circuitous route, in and out of all sorts of obscure places, ensuring that all have some kind of bus servicd, even if not very frequent. As usual, the bus turned down the steep road that goes past Greenfield railway station. We could hear the bus driver huffing and puffing. He clearly did not like the snow covered road surface.

At the bottom of that short hill the road makes a bit of a hairpin bend to the left. The driver let a number of cars go past in the opposite direction. He was preparing to give the bend a try, difficult at the best of times, when along came a rather large lorry, squeezing past us in the opposite direction. “I’m not going down there,” declared our driver, taking a right turn instead, obviously missing out Greenfield village altogether.

Those of us wanting Greenfield village persuaded him to stop and let us off and I trudged down the rest of the hill to the Tesco store. There I made my purchases, loaded my rucksack and prepared to go home, fitting nicely into my planned time slot.

Given that buses might continue to omit Greenfiled village from the route, I decided to walk back over the playing field to Uppermill in the hopes of catching the bus from there. By the time I reached the square my boots had absorbed at least half the surface water from the playing field and my feet were soaked but at least the Denshaw bus, which goes through Delph village and on into the possibly snowier wastes of the frozen north of Saddleworth, was due to arrive, Arrive it did, a good ten minutes late. The driver informed us that she was going no further.

I waited a little longer for our regular 350 bus to turn up. Two went past in the opposite direction. Three Hudderfield buses came and went. I debated sharing a taxi with two other ladies at the stop but eventually opted to start walking, something I should have done in the first place. It was now almost 11.00.

At each stop along the way I paused and chatted with people waiting, hoping to charm a bus into existence. My witch skills must have been frozen into dormant mode! Eventually, at the stop before the one where I would normally alight, a bus turned up. No use to me! I trudged on my way, feeling virtuous but wet-footed. Nothing that could not be cured with a warm towel and a fresh pair of socks, followed by a cup of coffee!

My daughter told me later that she had overheard at the local hospital, a short walk from her house, where she had taken her daughter for a routine appointment, that a bus had overturned somewhere in the area. Maybe that caused the problem or at least exacerbated it. But we have heard no more news about this.

Why do we deal so badly with weather in this country? We talk about it so much that we should be able to deal with it. We have not had three feet of snow fall in the space of two hours as has happened in some parts of the USA, prompting Trump to say we need a bit of global warming!!! The mind boggles!!!