Snow Chains

You'll remember that we both got Kahtoola Microspikes before Christmas and I did actually get to use them in anger before the first lot of snow finally melted. Now it looks like we might get to use them again with more snow forecast for our side of the country tomorrow, and considerably more (up to 40cm) down in Hampshire where I used to live.

There doesn't seem to be any real sign of this cold spell clearing any time soon: day time temperatures even down here are struggling to get above zero in the day time now.

Meanwhile Scotland, towards which Beth is meant to be heading in a couple of days, they're getting night time temperatures approaching -20°C and is rapidly closing down because of the snow. Today at one point both main routes north, the A1 and the M6, were both closed due to accidents in the snow. The A66 Scotch Corner to Penrith was shut too. In Scotland itself the A9, the main trunk road from the south up to Inverness was shut due to the amount of snow on them as were a lot of other roads and last we heard Aviemore was completely cut off¹. If a town as big as Aviemore is in that state then a lot of smaller communities will already be well snowed in.

So we dug out my snow chains. I bought them for Baby Blue, an old Series III SWB Land Rover I owned many moons ago but I never used them in anger. They're for 205R16 tyres so they fit a treat on Rudolf the Defender 90 ... which we've now SORNed and started to strip after it became clear it was going to be difficult to get through another MoT. So that's no bloody good (other than providing a good tyre for re-discovering how to fit snow chains).

But do they fit on Dougal the Discovery? Nope. They're about 8" too short. Damn. So much for Beth taking them with her if she goes to Scotland.

1. Latest report from someone who lives there is that they've got three to four feet of snow currently, and that's in the middle of the town not in the hills.