Snow was falling, snow on snow...*

*yes, I know it's a Christmas carol but read the post and you'll see why it fits...

I pity Moscow's street cleaners; it's snowing outside. Again. Just this morning as I was driving along the highway I noticed that the banks of dirty frozen sluck* had disappeared from the middle and the edges of the road. We could even see what will one day be grass again in it's place - amazing!

Now, this transformation didn't happen overnight. Well - it did, actually, but not unassisted. There are somewhere around 10,000 street cleaners working year round to keep the streets of Moscow clear. In the summer they become litter patrols, gardeners (Moscow has a lot of municipal landscaping), and drive the fleets of trucks that spray the roads to keep the dust down. In the winter, well of course it's all about the snow. It strikes me that this job must be particularly thankless; the only time it gets noticed is when there's a problem - which admittedly, is rare.

In any case I can just imagine them, late last night probably, shovelling snowy shit (sorry but there are 35,000 wild dogs in Moscow and as I was tweeting with Tim over at 'Bringing Up Charlie' recently, they do not carry their own baggies to clear up after themselves) into the back of numerous lorries to clean up the city in preparation for Spring, and congratulating themselves on a job well-done as they finished this particular stretch of road. And then today?

This happens.

I mean, I find it depressing enough...

In other news, I've been guest posting over at Slummy Single Mummy's blog. Want to know what I REALLY think about the female natives here? Go check it out...

* Sluck; my new word, do you like it? It's a cross between 'slush' and 'muck' , which is what snow here becomes after it's been hanging around in the city after a couple of months...