HOPEFULLY by the time this appears the snow will be sidling down drains because temperatures have soared to dizzying heights above freezing.

I’m fed up of pinching my son’s thermal socks and wearing not one, but two, pairs of gloves. I’ve gone through more tubes of lip-salve in the past two weeks than in the last two years, and if I really wanted to skate freestyle down our street (Widdecombe-style rather than Torvill and Dean, it has to be said) I’d have spent the past fortnight hugging the barrier at York ice rink.

But that apart, I’m from the fraternity that buttons up and just gets on with it. Not for me cosy snow days at home or kids under my feet because teachers have shut down classrooms apparently because pupils might fall over on the ice and hurt themselves in the playground. Whether or not there are good reasons for schools shutting up shop when the white stuff descends, education authorities have an uphill battle to climb on the positive PR front for the perception is that they close schools at the drop of a hat. And perception, they often say, is reality….

Anyway, back to getting on with it. I’m writing this on an early morning train to London following yet another day of rising well before sparrow’s phut, venturing out to find the car under a mound of snow and ice, then careening down the (un-gritted) lane out of our village for the bright lights of York station.

So what? I hear you cry. “I was up half an hour before I went to bed and licked t’ice off me car winders wi’ me tongue….” and other such Four Yorkshiremen nonsense. And that’s the point. There are so many people out there who’ve moved heaven on earth (well, tons of snow) to carry on life with some semblance of normality whether it be doctors and nurses, staff sleeping in signal boxes to keep trains running, taxi drivers and train crew, supermarket workers and gas men.

But how is it, for example, that the aforementioned gas men have kept the wheels turning to come to the rescue of victims of packed-up-boiler syndrome, but our local postman deemed it too much effort to don his snow boots and deliver our mail?

And how come the staff of train company East Coast cleared the platforms of snow at Doncaster station (which had a bigger white dump than us) but only appeared to make a half-hearted attempt at York? Plus given the extortionate fees they charge for car parking at York station – £13.50 a day – why could they not use some of the vast profit they no doubt make by getting a mini-plough in to clear the snow? Three times I’ve had to dig myself out of that car park in the past fortnight, as well as digging out a fellow traveller, to the extent that venturing through the barriers became a game of Russian roulette. If I slide into this parking space will it be the one that needs me to get the shovel out and dig for victory?

Just what you want after you've been up since 04.15 to catch the first train south, done as full a day's work as you can given the increased journey times and then spent well over three hours getting back to York instead of the usual two before slithering your way back to your village and arriving home after the start of The Apprentice. (Thank heavens for Sky-Plus). The contrast between local authorities and how they've managed to keep their worlds moving has been stark.

Uncleared and ungritted ice-bound pavements in East Yorkshire where my mother lives traps pensioners indoors for days on end and does nothing to enhance their quality of life or confidence in being independent.

It’s a false societal economy of course – not clearing the snow increases the risk of injury to those venturing out, so clogging up accident and emergency departments and increasing the cost burden on the NHS.

Don’t get me started on that one…

There’s enough been written in recent weeks about this nation's apparent incapability of keeping wheels turning in the face of adversity for me to continue pontificating on the snow soapbox. But there's no doubt that times like this bring out the best and the worst in people.

So thank you from my family and me to those who’ve gone the extra snow-covered mile in an attempt to maintain some semblance of normality and shame on those who’ve seen the bad weather as an opportunity or excuse to cave in and stay put, so risking giving the genuinely snow-bound a bad name. Roll on summer….