Cold weather

We have had a tragedy locally which made it to the national news I believe. A lady was killed in her car which got stuck on a level crossing as a train approached. Most of our country level crossings have those automatic barriers which come down less than a minute before the train is due. Unfortunately - as I understand it - her car got shunted onto the crossing by a van behind which hadn't realised she'd stopped. Because of the weather - icy roads - she couldn't manage to get herself or her car off the track in time. This must have been horrific for those who witnessed it and were unable to help as well of course for the lady's family.

Apart from events like this - why does the country grind to a halt in a bit of cold weather? I can never understand this. Round here we seem to be functioning reasonably well in a general sort of way - partly because we've got ice and not snow I think.

No book news today as I'm still in the process of reading Barchester Towers and a sort of cookery memoir by Daisy Garnett called Cooking Lessons. I'm not too sure about this as I'm finding it a shade patronising and also many of the recipes belong to other cookery writers - which she has acknowledged. Lists of ingerdients in other recipes seem incredibly long to me as well. She doesn't seem to take into account the fact that cookery is not an exact science and you only find out what you like by experimenting. More of this when I've finished it. The 4 letter words spoil it as well for me.