UK Snow Leaves Main Roads "Wide Open"
Last Wednesday we went away for a break (nothing to do with Thanksgiving, which we don't celebrate in the UK). Our plan was to spend a couple of days in Sleights, near Whitby, before heading further north to visit friends in Sunderland for the weekend.
The plans changed when we woke up Thursday morning and drew back the curtains to this scene of un-seasonally bad weather:
We decided to cut our losses and head to the North East a day earlier - not realising the weather up there was about to get a whole lot worse.
We had fun in all the snow. Well, the kids lasted about 5 minutes per outing. The photo below is down by the sea at Sunderland, where it was bitterly cold *.
No children were harmed in the making of that photo and we were soon back in the warmth of the car.
All the while I was keeping one eye on the local travel news to see how likely it was we'd get home - as planned - on Sunday.
While checking the travel news I noticed some funny reports of the A1 being "wide open both ways".
Wide open? Both ways?
"Come on Karen", I thought, "pack the bags! Lets get going while the roads are empty!!"
After a while I worked out that, in fact, Wide Open must be the name of a place up there. Sure enough, after asking a local and checking the map I found a place on the A1 called Wideopen (which I guess is pronounced "wide open").
Luckily we didn't hit the road at that point and waited until last night, by which time the roads were almost clear and we got home safely.
Anyway, I just thought the above anecdote might be amusing. Probably not, but it made me laugh.
Skip to the 
You can subscribe to an individual
There are some cracking place names in the UK .... I've worked in "Pity Me" near Durham and a mate who now lives in London grew up in a village called "No Place" just outside Sunderland !
Reply
Funnily enough the local man I asked about Wideopen mentioned Pity Me. "Nice play?" was my reply.
Talking of funny place names (NSFW!): http://goo.gl/zI3LN
Reply
In a slight aside and seeing as how you mentioned "Thanksgiving / Turkey Day" - did you notice that Bernard Matthews, probably the person most identified as a producer of Turkeys in the UK died aged 80-odd ON Turkey Day? Weird....
Reply
It could only be better if you had taken the picture of Felix in Wide Open.
Winter over here in the mid-west can be, as you may know, quite a bit more bitter and cold. There's a place in Michigan, where each winter, it gets so cold in fact that Hell (MI) freezes over.
Reply
Because his mouth is?
Reply
Show the rest of this thread