Well, it’s certainly been cold the last few weeks hasn’t it.
If, like me you either work outdoors or spend a lot of time outdoors you won’t have been able to ignore the fact that winters have been getting warmer the last few years. The last winter I would describe as ‘hard’ in Yorkshire being 2010, which coincided with the first year that my landscaping company was involved in supplying a gritting and snow ploughing service to our commercial clients – we definitely experienced a baptism of fire (or ice) that year.
With over a quarter of a century in business we are now able to look back on the jobs we were doing in the early days and reminisce about the difficulties we often faced due to long periods of sub zero temperatures. Breaking the ice on the water bowser and rock hard frozen ground was part of our daily routines for much of those winters – often not improving until after we arrived in April.
It has been with increasing unease that we’ve ‘enjoyed’ working in much milder weather the last few years, often commenting among the team about working in t-shirts in December and getting to the end of March with barely any frost. We’ve also noticed that the milder winter have changed some of our gardening routines too with much more moss and mould disease and an increased prevalence of many pests that are normally checked by a traditional winter freeze.
We actually took the decision at Aire & Calder Ltd last year to stop offering gritting and snow ploughing services as it was barely viable to keep and maintain the machinery and retain a team on 24 hour standby for the lean returns we have reaped of late.
With all this in mind I have to say that the last few weeks of snow and ice we’ve experienced in Yorkshire have been both a pleasure and a relief. Myself and Chelle have had some great winter walks on crisp frozen mornings and some very pleasant evenings in front of the fire too. The weather just feels kind of ‘right’ for January.
But…. I am mid way through some construction work on an outdoor kitchen and dining area here in Smithy Brook and work has ground to a halt as I can’t get the paving pointed in the current freezing conditions – the frost will simply blow the pointing straight out of the joints if I tried. So…. just a couple of mild dry days would really be appreciated.
Some people are never satisfied huh?
