Little things that irk you.. (no swearing please)

[Dogg Thang]

Negative people (who may or may not be negative simply because they're lazy). My estate got snowed in a couple of weeks back. With everyone driving over the snow, it quickly compacted to a glassy ice. A week after the last snow fell, it was still hard work getting a car in and out safely.

Now the snow is falling again. A few neighbours are trying to avoid a repeat performance and we've been out with the shovels trying to clear it so that the bottom layer doesn't end up one giant rock hard sheet of glass. Yep, more snow is falling but it's nice and light and fluffy and easy to shift. Unless, of course, you don't.

And then there are some neighbours who not only will not help (fair enough you lazy gob****es) but stand around telling the rest of us that we're wasting our time because there is more snow coming and what we clear will be icy. Like doing nothing worked so well the last time.

Doesn't even bother me that they won't help but at least stay in your home and shut the hell up while the rest of us actually try to make sure we can get cars in and out.

[Decider-VT]

Argh! Ran out of milk, so now I have to wrap up and head out to the corner shop in the snow.

[Sam The Man]

Negative people (who may or may not be negative simply because they're lazy). My estate got snowed in a couple of weeks back. With everyone driving over the snow, it quickly compacted to a glassy ice. A week after the last snow fell, it was still hard work getting a car in and out safely.

Now the snow is falling again. A few neighbours are trying to avoid a repeat performance and we've been out with the shovels trying to clear it so that the bottom layer doesn't end up one giant rock hard sheet of glass. Yep, more snow is falling but it's nice and light and fluffy and easy to shift. Unless, of course, you don't.

And then there are some neighbours who not only will not help (fair enough you lazy gob****es) but stand around telling the rest of us that we're wasting our time because there is more snow coming and what we clear will be icy. Like doing nothing worked so well the last time.

Doesn't even bother me that they won't help but at least stay in your home and shut the hell up while the rest of us actually try to make sure we can get cars in and out.

We have many inches of snow in our driveway and have not moved any of it as last year when we did it became one big sheet of ice (a deathtrap for my grandparents). My grandad can get his car out and back in again without a problem and the thick snow offers good grip to walk on so it will be left as it is. Our next door neighbour however was clearing his and when i suggested he leave it as it would be safer his response was ''no because im going to put some salt down''
Now the previous year we had the same idea and used an entire bottle of salt in the hope that it would keep the driveway safe but it had no effect and by the end of the day it had become very dangerous and my nan slipped up on it.
And If he had asked me for some help shoveling i would of given him a hand no problem despite the fact that i disagreed with him and strongly felt it would make things dangerouss for him and his wife to walk on as he could also get his car out.

If your snow really was compacting then clearing it was clearly the right thing to do for you but it was better for us to leave it as it was.

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah, that's the thing. The thin layer left can get really slippy. But what we were left with before was much worse - basically a two-inch rock solid version of the exact same thing. Because it was so thick in places, it also took ages to thaw. Fluffy snow or a thin layer of ice thaws really quickly after it goes above 0. Our local patented iceberg, on the other hand, was lethal when it went above zero because it was water over a thick layer of glassy ice.

The difference might be that we're in a very small enclosed estate. We don't have driveways leading on to a road. It's like a car park around our houses. So everybody is driving over the same patch of snow over and over to get to their spaces. Compacts in no time. Especially when people think the best way to drive through snow is to get those revs as high as possible until your wheels spin. Frustrating...

[Sam The Man]

Yeah, that's the thing. The thin layer left can get really slippy. But what we were left with before was much worse - basically a two-inch rock solid version of the exact same thing. Because it was so thick in places, it also took ages to thaw. Fluffy snow or a thin layer of ice thaws really quickly after it goes above 0. Our local patented iceberg, on the other hand, was lethal when it went above zero because it was water over a thick layer of glassy ice.

The difference might be that we're in a very small enclosed estate. We don't have driveways leading on to a road. It's like a car park around our houses. So everybody is driving over the same patch of snow over and over to get to their spaces. Compacts in no time. Especially when people think the best way to drive through snow is to get those revs as high as possible until your wheels spin. Frustrating...

Ah well thats fair enough then. If i had been your next door neighbour and you had it that bad i would of gladly given you a hand but like you said perhaps the area you lived had something to do with it.

[dazzling_bubble]

people who ask for advice and when you offer it they say 'na', ffs, why bother asking if your not going to listen to a suggestion given and more why the hell say 'na' like you weren't even listening in the first place, its so rude.

[NW2013]

'Secret gigs' - if they're so secret how come there are thousands of people there?

[kernow]

Easy, they're all hipsters.

[NW2013]

Also clothes that have to be hand washed or dry cleaned. I'm not buying you bastards anymore.

[speedlolita]

Buying an "art book" from Play.com to have it arrive half exposed to the elements, which means it's also water damaged.

It's for a present so yes it matters. ****ers, won't be buying books from them again, if at all.

[Geoff D]

The news' snow coverage, utterly ridiculous.

In a similar vein, the fact that the BBC's up to the minute coverage is rooted in London or Heathrow airport. There's the occasional nod to Scotland, but apparently there aren't any more places in Britain.

[fallenangle]

Is snow anywhere else really nationally news worthy though? If you live in the wilds of Wales, Scotland or NI you get it every year so it only becomes nationally news worthy if unusually severe.

In London the snow last winter and this has been the most significant in over 40 years. The last time we had widespread and more than just a powdering of pre-Christmas snow here in NW London was ten years ago. Several times in the last two decades we've had no snow at all throughout the winter.

Doesn't mean it hasn't been cold though: Rickmansworth, only 7 miles from me held the record for the lowest temperatures ever recorded in England (UK?) -27 degrees C. It's about the same distance from Heathrow too.

In short, it is national and even international news when the capital and all its surrounding airports, roads and rail services are so badly affected.

[Geoff D]

In short, it is national and even international news when the capital and all its surrounding airports, roads and rail services are so badly affected.

True - & thank gawd they don't go round the country asking everyone & their mother for their thoughts on the situation; however, I do question the worth of cutting back to their correspondent at Heathrow every 10 mintues to be told that some planes are flying & some aren't.

[Dogg Thang]

Just as an epilogue to my snow irk, a whole bunch of the neighbours got out and we cleared pretty much the whole place. At this stage last time, the estate was inaccessible. Now we're in and out with no problem. It was great to see that, in spite of a few naysayers (who, as it went on, it became clear they were more trying to justify their own inaction than anything else), most people got together and got stuck in. Now we're all shovel buddies and I look forward to writing a nice thank you note to everyone who helped.

So I'm less irked now.

[kernow]

It was damn icy outside today, dangerous as hell. I slipped many times but managed to compose myself (I nod to my old skateboarding days for that), and then on the way back from sainsburys I fell arse over tit and landed in a pool of creamy white ice cream that covered my whole back. lovely. Had to take it all off and put it in the wash, then sit around in my boxers as I didn't want to get dressed, while the water for a shower heated up and then I could put new clothes on.

And this house has no central heating, its beyond cold. I actually think its warmer outside sometimes.