As you are all aware, the last two weeks in Kent have been somewhat horrendous. Unless you are between the ages of 5-17 of course! What with school closures, sledding, snowball fights, it’s far from a hard life for the youths.

That can’t be said for the full timers of the county, I certainly haven’t enjoyed the snow ... in fact, I’m pretty sick of it now. As a commuter into the city, last week was definitely not all-white!

Tuesday 30^th November: Plan of action - Save the company from being snowed under!

   It’s 6am and I switch on the telly to see the Weather News.

  ‘We urge you not to travel unless it’s completely necessary’

   I ignore that whilst sipping a hot cup of tea and loading myself up with Beechams.

   I take a quick glance out of the window to see 15cm of snow covering gardens and rooftops.  I must say it looks gorgeous when you’re behind double glazing. Anyway, I ignore the snow whilst opening the front door to head towards the coach stop in my utterly-unsuitable-for-snow kitten heels. I managed to plod halfway up the garden path before slipping onto my backside, hooking myself onto the brown bin on my way down (Massive bruise under the armpit... check!)

I thought I would be the Hero at work that would show all the 15-minute commuters up... living the furthest away I hoped for a big applause as I ploughed my way into the 4^th floor office.

Turns out, turning up 20 minutes late is anything but applaud-able especially when everyone else manages to make it in early despite the weather! I was quite confused as to how we had so much snow in Kent, yet London didn’t even have an icicle in sight? If anyone knows why the snow doesn't settle in London, I’d be very interested to know...?

Anyway, my lovely boss decided he’d let me leave 30 minutes early to avoid any ‘bad weather traffic’... However, all he really done was contributed 30 minutes to my 6 hour journey home. You’ll know from my previous posts that I’m not the biggest fan of commuting and that my coach doesn’t cater for us ‘might need a wee at some point’ passengers. Ultimate result was 3 ladies (including me) clambering off the coach to the hard shoulder and baring all to the standstill traffic and relieving ourselves into the snow. Not my finest moment, although we did receive a few car horns. *beep beep!*

Feeling like my heroic effort was completely wasted on Tuesday; I decided not to attempt the commute for the rest of the week. I hoped my managers would be understanding as I had sent them numerous photos of my traffic troubles the night before. I thought we’d put it down to ‘A Bloody Nightmare Week’ and they’d let me play in the snow instead. Unfortunately, I had to chomp away at my 3 remaining holidays I had left for the rest of the year.

In case you are wondering... the photos I sent them were of jack-knifed Lorries and abandoned cars, not of me squatting on the M25!

I suppose I shouldn’t moan too much as it could’ve been a lot worse. Those poor passengers stuck on a train at Orpington for 2 days! Including one disabled man, who was luckily moved to some sort of ‘safe house’ while they arranged engineers etc. You’d think that the trains nowadays could withstand against temperatures lower than -3 degrees!

I would love to hear other’s stories of Snow-vember & how it affected them.

Happy Sledding!!