And just to add salt (pardon the pun) into our wounds even more Nick, I bet all your highways depots have mountains of salt in them too.........Must be like heaven :lol:

Gc

No snow here

I left work in Chiswick at 4:15, headed through Ealing where the snow was already falling, and promptly had someone run into the back of me (no damage though).
Made it onto the A40 which wasn't too bad and onto the M25 in the roadworks. Still snowing but not bad, made it to J20, A41 only about 15 minutes later than usual.
Set off up the A41 and instantly realised I was in trouble, road untreated, pure ice with snow falling on top. Getting up the hills was nigh-on impossible. Made it as far as the Hemel Hempsted turn and dropped down into Hemel which was total gridlock. Spent 3 hours getting through Hemel and finally was on my way up the old A41 to Berkhamstead, and although it was now 9:30ish, and the road was frozen, I was making good progress, up to 15mph at times.
Finally got to Cow Roast, 3 miles South of Tring around 10:15, I could almost smell home from there, and then the fun really started. There was one last hill up to Tring... and no-one was getting up that! Luckily there were 2 sets of guys in 4x4s towing people up the hill, just a case of waiting to get to the front of the queue and getting a tow....
Finally made it home at 11:40.... 7hr 25 for a journey I can normally do in 1hr15 ar rush hour, or 50 mins at other times...
Needless to say, I'm not in work today! Lucky really as I'm told the A41 is still closed!
Cheers
Martin

Great way to spend a day off......don't know why I bothered as the hill outside is still impassable :(

not with that car Dementor!! As I've found out twioce thuis year, BMW's best joke is their RWD system in the ice and snow. Forget it, leave it where it is and walk is the only solution!!

got the train in today, picked up the car and headed back....30 mins, 2 helpers and a shovel I got out of the car park and onto the road. Abandoned cars everywhere still in Basingstoke!

about 30 slept at the office last night; one girl left at 16.30 and got 5 miles to the nursery to pick up her daughter at 22.30 and stayed there the night; another came back for his car at 21.00 and the 4 miles home arrived at 01.00

got my laptop now so think I may miss the office until the new year!!

I am thinking it has something to do with the temperature hovering around zero, so the UK has this constant thawing and freezing to produce dificult conditions.

Here in Germany we had 30cm of Snow over the weekend and the temperature was -17'C on Saturday. The roads are only ploughed as salt doesnt work at these extreme temperatures, but even so there were no delays, everyone turned up at work on Monday and in conversation it hardly featured as a topic of any interest.

Unfortunately my poor English body couldnt cope, I cycled to work and the extreme cold on my throat has given me laryngitis. No carol singing for me tomorrow

Merry Christmas

I recall the days when we had a Unimog Snowplough up here at Harwell site, it did a great job of keeping the local roads in and out of the area clear, but alas cut-backs in recent years means it is no more

Now it just cost them people not turning up for work during heavy snowfall,
Back last Easter time when we had several inches of Snow only 2 of us out of 28 made it in

I decided to work from home today, glad I did as they closed the M27 this morning so couldnt have got there anyway! But its still freezing everywhere, so cant imagine Bainsgtoke is that much better than when I limped out of it yesterday

bnow if I'd have still had the Bimmer GS I would have ridden to work....

Well I've never driven a snowplough variant but some of my fondest memories of the Army are driving the Unimogs. Especially taking them off-road, they could go places our Landrovers couldn't because they had so much extra ground clearance. I had to dig one out of a stream by myself on my drivers course ... but it was 30 odd degrees, beautiful blue skies and not a cloud in sight. The rest of the course sat on and watched and hurled abuse at me and a few rocks :D