This is actually a picture I took last year, cos my phone and netbook are not speaking to each other. Something to do with Mercury being retrograde, I'm told, but it's all magic moonbeams to me. Anyway, this latest batch of snow is much deeper and still lying on the trees. It's so deep we're closed to the public so I've not had to rescue anyone (yet). Most of the gardeners have been seconded to the roads department and despite working their socks off to clear roads and pavements, they're still being subjected to dog's abuse from the very people whose cars they're pushing out of drifts. Honestly. So if you see some yellow coated homunculi spreading grit or shovelling snow, please don't throw things at them, or swear, or tell them it's all their fault you can't get to work.
The good news is the greenhouses are still standing, only five panes cracked. Last winter two unheated houses and two netting tunnels collapsed under the weight of snow. It was a horrific sight, all that broken glass and tortured metal, it gave me an inkling of how devastating earthquakes and the like must be. If it felt that bad seeing my workplace destroyed, how awful is it when your home's in ruins? This brings me to something that's been preying on my mind a lot. The plan to evict council house tenants if their income enables them to rent privately horrifies me. How evil to destroy people's security of tenure and turn housing schemes into transit camps for the poor. You may have been brought up to not play with those dirty schemies, and don't understand anyone wanting to live there, but believe me, the vast majority are decent, hardworking people. Why they should work to line the pockets of private landlords is beyond me.It's obscene and will turn housing schemes into ghettoes and I'm surprised that it's caused so little comment.
7 comments:
Dearest Isobel, I am relieved to hear that the damage to your glasshouses and other buildings is minimal and do so agree that this does make one grateful that one's house is not in jeopardy. I cannot believe the abuse that some of your colleagues are facing from the public. What is the matter with some people?
You are so right to raise the issue of the prospect of low income families being turned out of their homes and this is but one of a number of issues that I currently have enormous difficulty in understanding with the present government. Although I do not support violence, I do support action by students about tuition fees. It is obscene that students completing their studies may have tens of thousands of pounds of debt.Education can, I believe,be a real force for social mobility and effectively denying it to so many could lead, understandably I fear, to social unrest.
Dear Edith, I feel we're all being crushed by the onerous commitment to paying off the deficit as quickly as possible. Interest rates are so low that it seems the only reason to do so is to make the government look good before the next election. They're playing divide and rule (as usual). Have you noticed these changes are worst in England?
Dear Is the Wiz,
thank you for this really interesting post! I am always thankful to the people who are so diligently clearing up the snow and I cannot imagine why anybody should throw things at them?? When I hear in the morning the scrap, scrap, scrap of the snow shoveling janitor, I ask him if he wants a cup of tea! (Reminding very well how hard that work is!)
And to the council houses: I didn't read anything of such plans and think them not only heartless but also snobbish: we cannot decide what is good for another person - and if somebody makes a cozy home who are the bureaucrats to evict them? One needs security to invest care and love into something.
I wish you a wonderful 2. Advent
Britta
Thank you Britta, If the boys knew they'd be round your place clearing the snow every day!
I think the need to pay off the deficit is being used as an excuse to settle old scores in the class war, for there is no logic in decisions being made about housing, education and public services.
Thanks for visiting my blog.
Hello, Is!
Had not known that much of Scotland has been buried in snow! Minneapolis Minnesota has been buried as well.
Don't know anything about public housing over there so shall keep my nose out of it!
Pearl
Hi Pearl, and welcome. Our snow probably looks like a dusting of icing sugar to you!
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