Snow business is all very fine (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Snow business is all very fine

3:31pm Wednesday 4th February 2009

• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

I did well, all things considered, to get through unscathed to work and back on the bike during the snow falls.

Not from a lack of falling over or anything… I took it steadily enough on the downhill bits and kept off the icy bits, and generally enjoyed the whole experience, especially when the sun was shining.

No. The bit I was most wary of was the ever-present threat of being the sitting-duck target of the snow-ball-chuckers who seemed to linger on every corner in my fevered brain!

I think I foiled one set of potential attackers by using a string of overtaking cars as cover to thwart their efforts.

Other groups, armed to the teeth with snowball ammo, seemed happy just to let me go on a ‘free ride’ which I quietly thanked them for as I plodded on my way.

And then. Just when I thought I could lower my defences, a solitary snowball plopped down at the side of me, seemingly having come from the other side of the road and behind me.

To be fair, it seemed a half-hearted effort by whoever had lobbed it in my direction and, as usual, I chose to totally ignore it in the hope of disappointing the culprit even further my not appearing to acknowledge that anything had happened at all!

What I didn’t escape, though, was several ‘helpful’ words of 'advice' from passers-by like: "Watch out, mate. It’s slippy, you know."

Oh really? You don’t say!

It was satisfying, of course, to cruise past the struggling cars slithering around on the hills and get home well before colleagues who had set off for the same destination at the same time, and got stuck in the crawling traffic - arriving home in double the time it had taken me.

All in all, a pleasant enough experience of what the hysterical TV weather people call the ‘severe’ weather conditions.