Escape

Well what do you do when you can't get out of your house for four days. Well one thing is to go up the pub with the neighbours. They were almost killing each other from cabin fever from being stuck in the house for so long. It was a pretty slippy trip up the village to the Nag's Head but the fire was going and the beer was still in stock when we got there. One thing that amazed me was how some people were still driving in the snow and ice. Just 'cos you are in a four wheel drive doesn't mean that you won't skid into me and kill me on the pavement. People are morons I suppose.

I finally managed to get out on the 8th thanks to the lovely crew from the Forest of Dean District Council who turned up with a truck full of salt and grit. I think they were only meant to fill up the salt bins but me and two of the neighbours sort of descended on them and sort of forced them into spreading some grit down the lane. I'm sure they got into trouble but I did make them a cup of tea with some choccie biccies. Always feed/water the help, you'll get much better service I'm telling you. I was pretty knackered after going up and down the lane about 20 times with shovels full of grit but it was worth it just to be able to leave the house. The rest of the village did seem a bit pissed off though, as we were cleared and yet the main road through the place was not. Oh well, the privilege of living here for so long I guess.

I was glad we did get the road cleared as I was going up to Warrington near Manchester to meet up with some very old friends and it was looking as though it wouldn't happen right up to the night before. I even left the car at the bottom of the lane in case it snowed again. As it turned out it was fine on Sunday morning when I set off. Not even ice on the windscreen. In fact the drive up the motorway was lovely, there was no snow and there was absolutely no traffic on the road. The only way to travel in my opinion.

It was great to catch up with everyone, we had a nice carvery lunch (which is a very British thing I think) and then sepnt the night at a hotel by the motorway (another very British thing too). The hotel was brand new, big and must have had about six people in it because of the weather. The staff must have been bored out of their minds. The whole day was lovely but reinforced the fact that I never want my own kids. I mean my friends kids are great, but I just couldn't cope with them 24/7. Especially when they are over-tired, over-excited and over-fizzy drinked.

I actually thought I'd be stuck up in Warrington as the weather forecast kept predicting 20cm of snow on Sunday night. They were only out by 20cm as there was absolutely none when I woke up in the morning. In fact there was very little snow left until I got back to Birmingham then it really started to come down again. We are forecast 10 cm of snow overnight so again I have visions of digging the car out tomorrow. In fact I've left it down the road just in case.

If the weather is OK I think I'll head off to Bristol tomorrow as I am going a bit stir crazy here, then it's off to London at the weekend for a few days. I'll just be glad when the weather clears and I know that I can go out and not get stuck on the way back.