Seriously. The road "in" from the M4 is the A329; it is motorway for about a mile, until the first junction. Motorways are managed by the Highways Agency. "A" roads are managed by councils. The A329 is 4 lanes, 2 each way. Within 400 metres of the first junction, our two lanes were reduced to one almost clear lane showing two tyre marks with snow in the middle. And it got worse the further I drove. It was obvious that the road was only clear because of volume of traffic. (NB, it snowed Wednesday. This was Friday.)
Parking at work was an adventure, since the snow was at least 6 inches (15cm) deep. Four staff were supervising traffic, whilst a digger cleared half the car park. Then the email came out to move our cars and we all swapped to the other side of the car park.
Thought you'd like to see some snow photos. Here is the view from our kitchen window, taken on Wednesday.
And the view from the back door. Pretty.
Also, here is the front step, which we salted on Wednesday.
Noticed yesterday that part of it was obviously being held together by the moss. Oops! No mortar:
We're now out of dishwasher salt. So was the supermarket yesterday; it appears I'm not the only person who had that idea.
On the work front: this time, I bought home the work laptop. We have more snow predicted for Sunday, but I think I'll be able to get to the office on Monday. They're talking about this weather lasting another 10 days, so I'm debating whether to ask for an SUV to be hired for my trip to Site the week after next. On the plus side, the off-road function should make it drivable on bad roads. On the downside, a) there is no guarantee its tyres will be better than the ones I have already (as I've said before, they don't do winter tyres around here); b) there is a high possibility, I won't get an SUV even though I've asked for it; and, c) I won't earn the £200+ mileage allowance I get for driving my own car (it costs me about £50 per Site visit, so I make a profit each trip). Any thoughts?
- Pam
3 comments:
Have pity on your poor, ignorant, american friend. What is "dishwasher salt"?
"Dishwasher salt" is salt that goes in the bottom of the dishwasher in order to soften the water. I'd never heard of it either until I moved here - Britain has very "hard" water, which leaves deposits of lime-scale everywhere. If you don't put salt in your dishwasher, all your glassware comes out milky.
- Pam
Ah ha! Thanks. :-)
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