George East's Blog

The Wrong Sort Of Snow

February 9th:

I found it wryly amusing to tune in to home news from abroad  on the BBC and  be told that the UK is the laughing stock of Europe  because the nation has come to a full stop as a result of a bit of snow.  Increasingly from this perspective and distance, I have observed how good we Brits are at beating ourselves up; this will be the sixth time this month that we have allegedly been the prime source of derisory amusement  for our fellow Europeans

 If our self-flagellating social commentators  think we are bad at responding to adverse weather conditions,  they have clearly not been out and about in northern rural France when it snows  or rains a bit. Or at least in our part of Brittany, where it snows  and rains about as frequently and heavily as it does in the south of England.

 What is most noticeable when the weather changes for the worse here is how the local drivers go from being absolute lunatics to real scaredy-cats, and none more so than the usually oh-so macho (and madly bad) lorry drivers.

 Just like southern Britain, northern Brittany got a heavy dose of  snow overnight  at the beginning  of last week.   Snug and warm in our mountain fastness, we had not run out of any vital provisions and had no  real excuse to battle our way into the nearest town. But it was our  big chance to try out the new  second-hand  4x4 we  bought a couple of months ago mainly  to explore  all those interestingly mysterious  dirt tracks in our neighbourhood,  and  to get through the swamp that used to be our driveway.

 Accordingly, we took to the road across the moors  and found ourselves coming up behind   what we at first thought was a funeral procession.  Then we realised it was a queue of normally completely bonkers Breton motorists, driving  as if on eggshells rather than a bit of slush and snow. The weather conditions had obviously brought out the innate love of high drama lurking just below the skin of all French men and most French women. All the cars in front had their head, fog  and hazard lights  on, and it would literally have been quicker to walk than stay in the  queue. Overtaking  to a symphony of  hooting, hi-volume shrugging and general gesticulating  and  interesting comments, we arrived at the  main road  and found  the situation even worse.   

We were on the chief  thoroughfare  from  all parts of Brittany to the ferry port at Roscoff, and it was almost at a standstill.  Finding the road  conditions not to their liking, the drivers of at least a hundred giant euro-lorries  had just  bottled out and unilaterally decided to   stop where they were. I suppose it is  second nature to the average  French lorry driver to park in the most awkward situation and position possible or to deliberately form a blockade, and  I think some of  those in the little huddles alongside their vehicles  must have thought they were on strike rather than a slightly snowy road.

 As we threaded our way though the stranded juggernauts to more choruses of  hooting disapproval, we actually saw a man in a hi-visibility jacket, waving a red flag at the line of cars crawling towards his lorry.  Then three carloads of  gendarmes arrived with suitable blue light- flashing and siren-sounding accompaniment, and the scene was set for  some real drama. As the cops adjusted their gun belts  lit  up  their  fags with cool and practiced menace and  started their arm-waving and whistling routine to ensure a complete snarl-up, we slipped  trough a handy gate, across a field  and onto a lane which we knew would  take us home without let and hindrance.

As I have said before, the French may be great at  lots of things, but driving and making sensible use of the road  in  any conditions definitely  ain’t one of them.  Though when you think about it,  what can you expect from a nation  of drivers who  call a sparking plug a candle, and the rear window a toilet seat?