Snow! Lots of.

The problem with traffic reports on the wireless is that so often are the reports out of date or grossly exaggerated that I now tend to take them with a pinch of salt.

Admittedly, when the news about travel chaos in the south-east was supplemented by news that all of the airports were suspended I did think about aborting my journey down to London ready for work today. I called Vic and asked for an on-the-ground weather report, as a result of which I pushed on.

Two circuits were done of the roundabout where I join the M42 as I contemplated whether continuing was folly. I pushed on.

The first 100 miles went just fine. It was like being in a game of asteroids with increasingly heavy snow flying at the windscreen*, but that snow wasn’t settling on the carriageway.

Mile 101 was slow.

Mile 102 took an hour, and culminated in me reaching a junction.

Snow was now lying and rapidly accumulating to several inches deep. My wheels were spinning every time I inched forward. It was looking perilously like I was going to be spending the entire night in the car with only a down jacket for warmth.

The northbound side was looking to be in a worse state. With barely any cars getting through on that side, there was nothing to keep the lanes clear.

I took a deep breath and braved the exit.

The next ten minutes were up there as the second most scary driving experience of my life (not sure it quite pipped the experience of driving a transit van sideways along a snowy road in Scotland a few years back).

I did finally get back home in the middle of the night. And there’s still not even a flake of snow to be seen around here.

(*I suppose, technically, the snow wasn’t flying at me; I was driving into it)