Snow – Monday 21st December 2009
We don’t get much snow here in the UK, so when we do, there’s always a fuss. Loads of roads closed, traffic chaos, it’s always fun to watch how ape we go. There’s usually loads and loads of hype and then all we get is a light dusting, and this was the case on Friday. However, over the weekend, there was more, it was three inches deep here and 6 inches in places in the field at work.
This is where we live and how we get to the road:
Snow 21/12/09 - House to Road
We turn right out the driveway, right again, and then left or right at the junction depending on where we’re going. Yesterday we had to turn right twice, going across one lane onto the other, and had to take a run up; if we were on the little bit of road waiting to turn we’d just spin the wheels, we were in a rear wheel drive BMW, so we had to reverse back to the start of the longer bit of road we’d just come along, get round the shorter bit, and then just carry on to the main road without stopping, and just hope we saw anything that was coming before we went out.
Then, this morning, it was my turn. I too drive a BMW, so I had some RWD fun in store for me as well. The morning started off bad as the lock in the driver’s door was frozen, only the back-right door would open so I had to get in there and climb through. Finally got going and went along the first bit of road. Got to the first right bend, going slowly, turned, front went round, back kept on coming. I ended up facing the long green patch you see in the picture above, in the middle of the short bit of road. I knew then I was screwed as I’d lost my run up for the junction (even though I was turning left, I still couldn’t stop). I managed to face the right way but could not move anywhere worthwhile, 1st gear, 2nd gear, high revs, low revs, nothing, just span the back wheels. I then though I should try reversing into the bush (pictured here near the top left of the picture, next to the right turn to the short bit of road) and get some traction off the grass bank. This worked to an extent, I could get a good start off it, but I still ended up stopping at the same place I was before. I was getting rather frustrated at this point, but then a guy came from behind me in a Land Rover, gave me a push, and I was on my way.
Got all the way to work without any real issues. The place I work is a small building off someone’s house, and the only way to get to it is a track wide enough for one car, which is basically two concrete tracks that you drive along.
Snow 21/12/09 - Road to Work
This is normally fine. After the straight bit there’s that slight bump, there’s a little corkscrew there, road goes slightly to the left then down and right quite sharply. I had to go down there in 1st today to avoid ploughing into a tree of a flock of sheep. After this there is a cattle grid, marked by the first little red marker. I didn’t want to go over this too fast in case the wheels slipped and I hit the side, so I went over nice and slowly. Unfortunately I stalled after, and that was it. I stopped near the second little red marker and couldn’t get going again. It’s on a bit of an uphill slope which didn’t help. After a few minutes I’d only managed to make things worse by getting the right rear wheel into the ground between the two concrete tracks, leaving all the other wheels still on the concrete, so it was at a bit of an awkward angle. I gave up and went up to the office, and as I was almost there, a colleague came walking round the corner with a shovel and a bucket of sand. We tried to shift it but the sand didn’t help with grip, I was still going nowhere. Another colleague then reversed his Subaru to where we were to pull me out. His car was hide, 4WD, no problems pulling itself, but when it came to pulling me out it too was stuck and just span it’s wheels. So we gave up again and just went indoors, and called the farmer nearby to help get me out with his tractor. At about 14:00 he arrived and got me out, and I went home then, there wasn’t any point in staying as it was only going to get colder and everything could have started freezing over again, plus if we got stuck in the dark it’d be awful, so we left whilst we had the chance.
I hope it’s snowy again tomorrow.