I Just Could Not Beleive It!

I Just Could Not Believe It!

Whenever it snows I leave my car at home. I either walk where possible or if it can’t be helped I get the bus. I was going to work and it is miles away from home and it had just started to snow, well it was SO little, you couldn’t really call it snow. I had to make a split decision; do I risk it and drive? Saving me a lot of time or do I take the bus. I decided to take the bus. When I take the bus to work in the winter, it’s such a long journey I take a little flask, and various nibbling snacks and a good book, so my time is not wasted. Usually I sit by the window, at the back downstairs. So as I got on the bus, the ‘snow’ if you could call it that as it was such a little amount, just about covered the roads but I didn’t care as I didn’t need to worry about anything as I was not driving; so I enjoyed my hot sweet coffee, nibbles, and my book.

When I looked up from my book I noticed the windows in the bus was all steamed up! I couldn’t see out, I looked at the time and the bus, hadn’t arrived at my stop, in fact I was very late for work! I rang my boss and said to her, “I don’t know where I am,” then the woman sitting next to me, told me where I was!! I was shocked! The bus was at a standstill! I told my boss, Poppy that I was about three miles from work! I told her I was going to get off the bus and walk the rest of the way. I got off the bus and I just could not believe my eyes! For the rest of my life I don’t think I would ever see or experience it again.

All of the traffic on the main road stopped and were in both directions, bumper to bumper. The snow was less than one inch high, maybe even half an inch. As I walked on I saw all the other busses the same number bus that I was on, that should have gone the many miles one way to my work place and back again to my home town, but none of those seven busses had got anywhere!  They were just stuck in this massive traffic jam. Some cars were just abandoned for no vehicle moved. I said to one bus driver sitting in his empty bus his door was open, “How long have you been there?” he replied, “Four hours” I said, “What happens if you need the loo?” He said, “I’m trying not to think about that.”

I arrived at a roundabout and I just couldn’t believe it, the only people who had ‘power’ was us walkers; for all around it was cars and buses! Wow! It was bumper to bumper and all the roads leading to it. I walked on, Poppy had told me she would stay until I arrived and then she would go home.

I eventually arrived at work and told them all about it, it seemed farfetched but they said they had seen it on the television, that it “Looked bad.” I told Poppy I wouldn’t be surprised if it took her four hours or more to get home, she replied, “Don’t be silly” I told her, “I am serious, it would take you four hours, or more!” I warmed myself and got on with my work.....

I work on a very quiet road, when suddenly at eight thirty pm, we heard traffic and soon within about fifteen minutes there was bumper to bumper traffic outside the door! The traffic I’d seen hours earlier had tried to struggle to find an outlet, a way out, and from three miles away, found our road! It was crazy.

Four hours later Poppy rang to say she had just arrived home!!! I said, “I told you so, that what you saw on telly was nothing, you experienced real life!” She had lots to say about her ordeal and long journey home; that what should have taken her only an hour, took four!

It was all everyone was talking about, on the news. Later that evening I told my Husband there was no busses or taxies that I would have to sleep over at work!!!!!! But where we lived the traffic wasn’t like this, so he couldn’t understand but, he too had seen the area where I work, it was on the main news, so he knew I wasn’t exaggerating, you just couldn’t about that day.

The following day the news and newspapers were full of it again. Everyone had a story to tell, some had just pop to the shops, to the indoor shopping centre and not took a coat with them and was stuck in their cars for many, many hours, a trip that should have took them only twenty minutes took ‘an experience’ never to be forgotten.

The following day I went home. It was hard to believe the snow had only been half an inch high! It had caused chaos, to hundreds of lives, if you were there in it you wouldn’t believe your eyes, you wouldn’t forget it, as it was unreal!