Ok, Tuesday, the snow having finally gone away, I call a customer in Liverpool and arrange to go visit them on Wednesday morning, of course by the time I've got home, packed my bags and left the snow has fallen heavily here in south Wales and the ***** are out in force.
I only realise how bad it is when going downhill on a dual carriageway, only the left lane is usable, due to tyre tracks through it, but on the other side that lane has been filled with abandoned cars and the unusable right hand lane is now full of people just spinning their wheels and getting nowhere, before they give up and add to the growing pile of abandoned cars. I figure I should abandon this journey, but that means turning around and joining that pile of idiocy.
Next hill is a single carriageway, 2 lanes up, 1 lane down, and the only people who can use the middle lane to go up are the people in proper Land Rovers or riding quad bikes. The downhill people are going very slowly due to the tailback caused by the idiots in the above paragraph, and my uphill lane is stuck due to a single decker bus spinning it's back wheels and getting nowhere, just before the summit of the hill. So what does the identical single decker bus behind me decide to do. He goes for the snow filled middle lane and tries to overtake everybody.
I'm parked on one of the steeper parts and guess at what is going to happen. I reverse back to where the bus just was and sure enough he manages to swing his back end out into where I was just moments before, barely missing my front bumper, and then gets stuck and gives up. I use a handy layby to undertake him, and give a few choice hand gestures.
Of course this now means that the 4x4 ambulance that has just appeared at the top of the hill, wanting to go down the middle lane, is now delayed for about 20 minutes while the downhill people provide a suitable gap to let it past the bus.
3 hours later I reach the top of the hill, a hill that normally takes me a couple of minutes.
Now I have to contend with a sodding Nissan Micra doing 5mph, which is simply not fast enough on this terrain, sure it's fine on the flat but at the next hill he's going to get stuck half way. I leave a nice big gap, don't want to stop as I'll never get moving again. The only good thing about this speed is I'm able to offer some poor old bloke who'd abandoned his car on the previous hill a lift to the next town so he doesn't freeze to death, and he can get in and out without me having to stop.
Next hill I end up having to overtake that bloody Micra as sure enough they'd got stuck half way up, and now it's snow filled dual carriageway all the way to the M4, still only with one useable lane. I'm pushing it a bit, doing 20mph but after a bit who should turn up and proceed to sit 1 1/2 car lengths off my arse, it's that ****ing Micra driver again, I'm starting to get rattled now as this is getting dangerous, especially since it's not the sort of situation where you want to be applying brakes. I'm in 2nd gear using engine braking to slow down, and I make a mistake, I drop into 1st too soon and the car is instantly sideways across both lanes. Fortunately I don't hit anything, but that Micra comes to a stop about 6 inches off my drivers door.
I stick it in reverse, get back onto the road and carry on, finally the Micra driver gets it and leaves me a decent amount of space.
3 1/2 hours to get to the M4/M5 junction. Normally I'd go cross country and it'd take me an hour to get to the M50/M5 junction. Finally get to Liverpool at 1:30AM.
Oh and in the morning, the snow had followed me up north.
I only realise how bad it is when going downhill on a dual carriageway, only the left lane is usable, due to tyre tracks through it, but on the other side that lane has been filled with abandoned cars and the unusable right hand lane is now full of people just spinning their wheels and getting nowhere, before they give up and add to the growing pile of abandoned cars. I figure I should abandon this journey, but that means turning around and joining that pile of idiocy.
Next hill is a single carriageway, 2 lanes up, 1 lane down, and the only people who can use the middle lane to go up are the people in proper Land Rovers or riding quad bikes. The downhill people are going very slowly due to the tailback caused by the idiots in the above paragraph, and my uphill lane is stuck due to a single decker bus spinning it's back wheels and getting nowhere, just before the summit of the hill. So what does the identical single decker bus behind me decide to do. He goes for the snow filled middle lane and tries to overtake everybody.
I'm parked on one of the steeper parts and guess at what is going to happen. I reverse back to where the bus just was and sure enough he manages to swing his back end out into where I was just moments before, barely missing my front bumper, and then gets stuck and gives up. I use a handy layby to undertake him, and give a few choice hand gestures.
Of course this now means that the 4x4 ambulance that has just appeared at the top of the hill, wanting to go down the middle lane, is now delayed for about 20 minutes while the downhill people provide a suitable gap to let it past the bus.
3 hours later I reach the top of the hill, a hill that normally takes me a couple of minutes.
Now I have to contend with a sodding Nissan Micra doing 5mph, which is simply not fast enough on this terrain, sure it's fine on the flat but at the next hill he's going to get stuck half way. I leave a nice big gap, don't want to stop as I'll never get moving again. The only good thing about this speed is I'm able to offer some poor old bloke who'd abandoned his car on the previous hill a lift to the next town so he doesn't freeze to death, and he can get in and out without me having to stop.
Next hill I end up having to overtake that bloody Micra as sure enough they'd got stuck half way up, and now it's snow filled dual carriageway all the way to the M4, still only with one useable lane. I'm pushing it a bit, doing 20mph but after a bit who should turn up and proceed to sit 1 1/2 car lengths off my arse, it's that ****ing Micra driver again, I'm starting to get rattled now as this is getting dangerous, especially since it's not the sort of situation where you want to be applying brakes. I'm in 2nd gear using engine braking to slow down, and I make a mistake, I drop into 1st too soon and the car is instantly sideways across both lanes. Fortunately I don't hit anything, but that Micra comes to a stop about 6 inches off my drivers door.
I stick it in reverse, get back onto the road and carry on, finally the Micra driver gets it and leaves me a decent amount of space.
3 1/2 hours to get to the M4/M5 junction. Normally I'd go cross country and it'd take me an hour to get to the M50/M5 junction. Finally get to Liverpool at 1:30AM.
Oh and in the morning, the snow had followed me up north.
