The Crafty Way to Balance Your Gritting Budget!

I opened the kitchen door this morning to let Ruby out, and was greeted by the antics of the original skating dog. Elegant was not the word I would have used to describe her first slide, however she did maintain her dignity by not collapsing in a heap, but remaining upright at all times.

This little preamble to today’s blog is just to put you in the picture concerning the prevailing weather conditions in our part of Siberia.

After returning from walking Ruby last night, I noticed that the temperature had risen slightly, but that there was a distinct wind blowing. There was a very slight fall of very sloppy sleet too. I remember thinking “It could be fun tomorrow if the temperature falls during the night.”

Well, fall, the temperature certainly did! The car was completely covered in a two/three millimetre layer of solid ice, but not only the car – the entire drive and the surrounding pavements too!

As I had to take the good lady to work for 8.00 am that meant clearing the windscreen and windows of ice, and that took about 15 minutes, because after I had scraped the ice off the glass, it then froze back on again. De Icer seemed to be the next best step, followed by windscreen wipers, but they just smeared the ice back on to the glass, so there had to be more drastic action taken – run the engine, and put the heater on "full" for the windscreen.

Going down the drive, which barely slopes, was something of a fun exercise as there was sheet ice completely covering it. Once on to the road I decided to go the opposite direction to usual, as there is nasty sloping corner in the usual direction which is often covered in ice. The five minute trip took about 20 minutes due to the fact that the vast majority of drivers were being sensible and driving slowly and with great care!

Apart from the bus route and the main road nothing had been treated. I know there is supposed to be a shortage of gritting materials, but surely on this occasion something could have been done. Then the cynical part of the brain kicked in!

It costs money to grit and the gritting budget is probably overspent, so why not grit less (and use the excuse that the gritting materials are in short supply) and let the brunt of the costs (caused by accidents/falls etc.) be borne by the hospitals.