Winter. Already?

Walking the dog tonight reminded me just how fickle the British climate can be, when I took him out on Monday night I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, tonight just 2 days later I’m layered up like I’m about to tackle Scafell Pike! Only recently the long range weather forecast was predicting snow as early as October, this seems to have been revised now to late October for Scotland and Northern England only, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

So what’s this got to do with Land Rovers? Well, during the winter months people seem to suddenly become ‘interested’ in Land Rovers especially when they happen to be stuck in a ditch and you happen to have a tow rope, oh how I wish that I’d had a camera with me that day!
It seems that us Land Rover drivers are among the few that actually relish the thought of snow and challenging winter weather and there seems to be several reasons for this, the first being that few vehicles are as ready ‘out of the box’ as a Land Rover for severe weather conditions. One of the other reasons seems to be what we carry around with us in the vehicle. The picture below is of a box of ‘stuff’ that tends to live in the boot year round, this includes a few tools, tow strap and bridle, various shackles, work gloves, etc, etc. On top of that during the winter this lot gets supplemented with jump leads, shovel, boots, extra clothing, etc. I’m sure you get the picture.
So my wandering logic tends to point towards the fact that even if we do get ourselves in to trouble we usually have the means to get ourselves out of it. Another point seems to be that we (again usually) tend to be involved with the maintenance of our vehicles to varying degrees so attend to things that need doing when they need doing rather than leave it to chance.

So what is it about Land Rover drivers that makes us carry all this stuff? Maybe it’s that sense of confidence that these vehicles seem to convey, who knows, but what ever it is keep doing what you do fellow drivers of the ‘green oval’, it’s what sets us apart from the rest of the vehicles on the road.