Winter Survival Guide...or how to prepare for another tuesday snow day!

Guest Author: Mark Pauley
Mark is one of Safety Training Scotland's directors and a highly regarded trainer in his own right.  He has been delivering health & safety training for over six years and previously worked in high-level live event management.
https://www.safetytrainingscotland.com

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Hands up if you miss blue skies, temperatures above zero and driving on dry roads to Timmy’s? We certainly do! Well, there’s no point yearning for summer when we’re only halfway through. All you can do is enjoy the snowy landscapes, drink your body weight in hot chocolate and rock as many wooly sweaters as you physically can!

To make sure you make it to spring, we’ve whipped up a handy Winter Survival Guide to help you get through winter in a good mood and with all your bones intact.

Dashing Through The Snow

Snowy paths, black ice and hidden drops. Don’t you just love walking around in the winter?

Yeah, us neither! The good news is that with a couple of quick changes we can have you traversing the tundra like an Arctic fox!

• Choose the right shoes. First things first, runners, flip-flops and other inappropriate footwear should stay at home in your cupboards. Treat yourself to some high-quality winter footwear and enjoy the stability, grip and confidence that comes with them.
• Walk like a penguin. Usually when we walk, we lean back and strike the ground with our heel first. This, however, does not work when there’s ice underfoot. Move your shoulders over your feet, take short careful steps and spread your weight as evenly as possible across your foot. You can thank penguins for this little tip!
• Keep your hands out of pockets. I don’t care how cool you look walking around with your hands in your pockets. If you slip, you’ll be glad it’s your hands breaking your fall and not your face!
• Wrap up warm. People often say there’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes. Those people have probably never been up to Big Trout Lake where minus 30 is considered barbecue weather! Anyhow, wear warm clothes just in case you get stuck outside or your car breaks down.
• Take your time. It’s way better to be late and in once piece than in the emergency room.​​

The Wintermobile

Driving in winter is tricky so it’s important your vehicle is up to the job. Heading out onto a snow covered rural highway in a rear wheel drive Chevy with bald tires is just asking for trouble! So, before you head out, the first thing you should do is prep your vehicle for the challenging winter environment.

Here’s the key points you need to look at.

Okay, got your car, truck or van sorted? Great! Next up is your emergency kit. This kit should contain everything you need to ride out an emergency — breakdown, crash, that sort of thing — until help can arrive.

Once you’ve packed it, stow it out of the way in the trunk of your car and try not to take anything out unless you replace it soon after.

Here is what we suggest you pack.

And that’s you ready to go! We should remind you that no amount of prep will make driving in the snow easy or risk free.

Finally, respect the weather, drive the conditions and don’t take unnecessary risks.

hygge

Winter isn’t just a danger because of slips, tips and oversteering cars. The short days and cold temperatures can sneak up on you and put you into a low energy mental slump.

Thankfully, the Danes have just the thing to snap you out of your funk: Hygge. No, we didn’t just fall asleep on the keyboard! Hygge is a very real thing. The popular Danish word hygge (pronounced hue-geh) was the word of the year in 2016 despite having no real definition. It’s a sort of weird state of mind so what’s hygge to me might not be hygge to you.

It’s appreciating the pleasurable ordinary things like a mug of cocoa or curling up in a blanket. It’s having dinner with friends or looking out the window. It’s being in the right place, at the right time and enjoying the experience of being there.

​So, instead of longing for a cold beer and a barbecue, enjoy what you’ve got now. The beautiful snowscapes, an excuse to drink your bodyweight in coffee and wearing more wool than a sheep!