The Snow Brings Out the Best!

Edinburgh woke up this morning to a real Christmas scene (again) - just four weeks early!  But in spite of this the children loved it, particularly those who found that the weekend had been extended by a day when their school was closed.

For those travelling within the UK and abroad by air, the news was not good first thing and those sensible enough to check their mobile texts or e-mail found that many early flights were cancelled.

Edinburgh airport did get some away later, but incoming flights were again affected this evening as I know my own flight which was due to bring me back from London was cancelled - sighs of relief all round!

But the snow does appear to make everyone more friendly and there seems to be more comradeship in adversity.

When I was clearing the snow from the front of the house this morning, almost everyone passing wished me "good morning" which never normally happens in Edinburgh!  Incidentally, why don't we in Britain adopt the very sensible rule that the Germans have, that you are responsible for clearing snow from the pavement in front of your house?

Encouragingly, I did see that the Council have got a new, small snow plough since last year and was clearing the snow from the pavements in Queen Street - and presumably from other main shopping streets. 

But there were plenty of other good things happening in the city with the snow - strangers giving others a push to get cars out of snowdrifts and one interesting incident where a taxi was stuck on a hill with its wheels spinning - several people gamely came over to help get it going and extract itself from the snow drift.   But what was rather strange was that the two passengers in the back sat there happily throughout this exercise and did not make any effort whatsoever to help! Surely this could not have been the face of "Old Edinburgh" making its presence felt again?