Eastern European Winter

Every winter there is one day when it is so slippery that you can't actually leave the house. The last time before this that I remember was on the opening day of the Heifetz violin competition in February 2005 when the place was full of foreign violinists and their fragile instruments and hands. (I've missed large chunks of winter since then.)

This winter it happened last Friday. Lunchtime, to be precise.

In the morning I had been running - there was a slight dusting of snow, but generally it was ok. It was trying to snow, but not quite succeeding. Later that day we walked round Vilnius, popped into the contemporary arts centre for half an hour, where amongst others we saw an exhibition about an arts movement called 'Fluxus' which our Mr Landsbergis had been involved in, and which, much more to the point, appears to have been started by (amongst others) the Lithuanian-American artist George Maciunas, included the German artist Di[e]ter Rot[h] (of whose work my mother has fond memories), and which demonstrated against the 'elitist' music of Stockhausen and was involved in happenings....

I'm kind of finding it hard here to keep my art and my daily events apart.

Anyway, when we popped out again, it had rained ice. That's the only way to describe it! It still seemed to be raining ice, and the pavements were covered, even after this short period, on a fine, but oh so effective, film of ice. Everyone was walking about in that stumbling, buttock clenching walk that you do and that so holds you up.

The morning after(Saturday) the ice had settled down nicely - with very flat areas covered in a layer, no more than half an inch thick, but it was enough. And it was very hard, and not many people seemed to be engaged in Doing Something About It. It messed up all your shortcuts - not many other people used them, so they were totally icy. By Sunday at least some ice-free, sanded paths had formed.

Finally on Monday it snowed hard - out I went for a run; after all, the snow would cover up the ice and everything would be ok.

Unfortunately the snow was still very light, not compacted (all the better for safe running, I thought), and also not shovelled away. It's amazing, when fresh snow is on top of a sheet of ice, how quickly it slides away - as I found, sliding on my back along a pavement. After that, I developed a hierarchy of running:
Best - a street that is sometimes used and clear of snow and ice
then - a street that is more often used, but you end up getting covered in slush if you make the cars move over out of your way
then - a forest where you run on greenery under the snow (but you can't see the snow)
then - test the pavement that you are planning to run on
after that - don't go for a run!

Why are pavements not cleared well this winter? We no longer have the many unemployed who used to do this. In fact, businessmen (and -women) are complaining that they cannot get the quality of staff any more - they are scraping the bottom of the pool for applicants. All the good workers are abroad....