Monday 2 February 2009

Snow place like home

We've had 6 ins of snow overnight, and I'm working from home today. This is the pub at the end of our road:

Anywhere other than the south east, people take this sort of thing in their stride. But round here, a few inches of snow and the place grinds to a halt. OK, I could jump in the 4x4 and head off, but the council haven't spread any grit and the roads are littered with numpties in unsuitable cars slipping and sliding all over the place.

Still, it's a chance to give some of the more serious kit a proper test. This is the Arktis Falklands coat. It's proving excellent. Good materials, well designed and well put together. The snow sticks to it, but inside it's dry and warm as toast. The big cuffs go well over my ski gloves, and there's a high fleece collar to stop the stuff dripping down my neck. There's a zip-on hood, which I haven't used yet. 

One minor drawback I've discovered with the coat is that fibres of the filling tend to creep out of the green nylon inner liner, leading to white pilling on the inside of the coat. It doesn't seem to affect performance at all, but when you take the coat off you have little bits of white fluff stuck to the layer beneath.



Also trying out the Hunter Bamboo Carbon wellies in the snow - excellent grip from a proper sole, and really good insulation - a world apart from the old basic rubber welly. The soles feel soft and springy, making walking easy. My toes would be frozen in ordinary wellies by now!

2 comments:

The Suburban Bushwacker said...

While i was busy mocking the home counties inability to expect weather (snow! but we live in northern europe!! who'd of thought it!) whilst on the way in this morning. I was shocked to find that even the yorkshireman who train us were taking two days off.


Still its provide more time to spend eating black pudding so no complaints from me.

Keep warm
SBW

Anonymous said...

Playing in the snow while I had to creep into work! I don't know....I was thinking why the UK struggle with snow and the reason is we don't get enough of it. If you know snow will fall in November ans stay until March then you put on snow tyres, buy snow chains, have ploughs on the front of trains and for clearing roads. It's easier and cheaper for the UK to just shut down for the one or two bad days than prepare for something that happens once a year!
Great opportunity to take cute dog pics in the snow though!!