THE Beast of the East certainly made it a lively few days in the district.

There is no doubt that the amount of snow was much more than in the much talked about winter of 2010.

I have heard on the street people talking about the council not doing this and then not doing that and I thought to myself, really there is not need for that sort of talk.

What the guys were having to deal with was by far and away the worst conditions experienced here since the 1980s when bad winters used to be a regular feature.

The winter teams were out in force to try and keep bus routes open.

That was always going to be a tough ask with the fierceness of the wind which whipped the Siberian powdered snow into massive drifts.

The wind caused a lot of the problems which led to roads being blocked and the frequency of the showers were quite stunning which inevitably led to problems keeping roads open.

At the end of the day the work of the teams kept things as manageable as possible in the most extraordinary of circumstances so for people to criticise the gritting teams is really not right.

I heard the Scottish Transport Minister on the television saying that you can always learn from what has happened in any given situation.

No doubt the Transport people will sift information from what has happened around the country and be able to put improvements in place so that anything that happens in the future can be tackled.

The thing is that nature is a very strong animal, Beast or no Beast, and anything humans do to tackle it is always going to find it hard going.

SNOWY,

Lochgelly.