it's snow joke

It was like déjà vu all over again last week.

After my big old couple of weeks off for Chrimbo and the New Year I was supposed to start work again on the Wednesday. I always like to take a couple of extra days and come back mid-week when I have any sort of holiday, because I find that shift to a full working week from holiday quite stressful.

Well my timing weirdly meant that I was coming back on Wednesday and Tuesday night was when it snowed heavily. Of course it had snowed before Christmas and had been pretty horrendous by all accounts, but it wasn't too bad while I was at work and then when it got bad I was off.

In fact, that pre-Christmas snow actually ended when I went down to Devon to visit my Dad - it was milder and rained heavily that morning I went down and that actually cleared away the snow, so my journey down was okay. And of course down in the South west they never have it so bad anyway.

I did have scary moment, though. I stopped at Cartgate services to have a pea and when I was driving out of their I hit some black ice on the road out. I turned left and the car went straight on.

It was my own fault because I was going too fast and it was just lucky that no-one was coming the other way. I didn't make it all the way across to the other side of the road, but I crossed the line marking the middle of the road.

Anyway, the déjà vu came because the snow that fell on Tuesday night was almost the exact same depth at what we got last February. And as then, I was trapped.

To be frank I probably would have stayed trapped as well if it wasn't for the fact that my landlord was going on holiday on the Sunday. That meant that he organised a "digging party" and we dug ourselves out on the Thursday.

Also, what would have encouraged me to stay is that I can actually work remotely from home. Plus, because of my pack rat mentality, I'd estimate that I had about 2 weeks of food that I coudl have lived off of. Admittedly, after a while my diet would have gotten a bit bland - lots of pasta and chicken and rice (which aren't great breakfast choices, in my opinion), but I could have survived.

Anyway, the dig out meant it was worth attempting to come to work on the Friday. The journey wasn't great to be frank. The roads had been cleared a bit, but they were a long way from being properly cleared. Especially when you got off the main roads - the industrial estate I work in was almost impassable and I actually got stuck. Luckily my boss has a 4x4 and was able to tow me out.

I took it steady both going and coming back, especially given my experience before Christmas, but that didn't seem to be the attitudes of most people on the roads - I had loads of people tailgating me, which seems the most ridiculous behaviour imaginable in this weather.

One slip or slide and what would have been me having a scary moment on my own could easily become a horrendous pile-up, just because people weren't giving enough space.