The Road to Nowhere

 

I was getting so excited! Ricky Tims was coming to England for just one day and I had a ticket to go and see him! My husband had offered to drive me and two friends the 50 miles or so - a journey which Google told us should take 56 minutes. We allowed 2 and a half hours - should be plenty right? Wrong!!!

When we woke up Wednesday morning we had a sprinkling of snow. We set off to pick up QuiltSue a short distance away and almost immediately hit very slow moving traffic on the motorway. A detour on local roads got us to Sues but the motorway was no better so another detour was needed. Now we were on the M62 to take us over the Pennines towards Manchester and for a while the traffic moved slower than usual but steady. This didn't last long. Very soon we were stopping and starting, crawling along, very slowly,  surrounded by heavy trucks. Click here for a link to the BBC news report

After  about 30 miles and 3 and a half hours the traffic situation was getting worse by the minute as cars, vans and lorries broke down as they tried to drive up the hill and it was snowing again. We heard on the radio the motorway was closed in the opposite direction ahead of us. All the other routes were closed because of the snow. We had already missed the morning lecture and it looked like we probably wouldn't make the afternoon plus the journey home might be just as bad. We very reluctantly decided to go home.

I know those of you in countries which have worse winters than us must find it strange that a few inches of snow causes such problems. We don't have heavy snow very often so we're not as prepared for it as some but I think the biggest cause of the chaos is that our roads are so crowded - even on good days a minor accident or road works can cause long queues of traffic.

I'll be looking out for Ricky's next visit to England and next time I'll make sure I travel the day before and stop overnight!