Sometimes it occurs to me I do actually have a purpose in life, I am possibly a fantastic example of what not to do. A fantastic Warning to Others. Really.. I mean here's a few lessons I learned yesterday.
No really. You can have them for free.
Lesson 1. Do not ever, never ever ever believe the weather forecast over the evidence of your own eyes. Look at me! Early yesterday morning whilst climbing over the snowbanks on either side of the main Cheesetown road, through the latest in what was one of our now
regular blizzards, I continued to believe that we would have mild wintry showers, clearing later. All the snow was going to move south. Today all snow would be English Snow.
And just as well too, because I mean who much longer can anyone work from home? Chiz at this rate The Extremely Eminent and Respected Institute of Edinburgh is going to find out what a doddle my job is, and find a cheaper chimp to do it.
Except when I tried to buy a new weekly season ticket to Edinburgh my bus driver said
"Are you sure???"
Lesson 2. Your bus driver might know something you don't.Four miles down the road it was clear that The Met Office might have been a bit economical with their adverse weather warnings. By the time I got to the Institute the Athens of the North had just become the Reykjavik of the South.
However Penny is not a woman to be easily panicked. through all the rumours "the trains have been cancelled! The M8's blocked! There's no bus services!" she continued to maintain that it would all just blow over.
Lesson 3. Your boss is not ever and never a meteorological expert. Not even if she works in the Met Office (see lesson 1 above)
At half 12 despite Penny's predictions, the snow had failed to blow over, melt and resolve itself into a dew. So we were Sent Home. All we could do was share cars. Which is how I came to share a car with Big D. The Institutes's most learned and senior Expert in Things Obscure.
Lesson 4 It pays to have a fund of small talk, because you never know when you're going to be stuck in a car with a Senior Member of Staff. For four hours.
For four hours (count them...) we inched slowly out of Edinburgh, with a couple of thousand other cars. At one point we spent no less than 40 minutes watching the traffic lights around the Gyle change from red to green and back to red again without moving a single inch.
After the first four hours it was dark. Between us Big D and I had agreed on the causes of the Banking Crisis, the futility of Fair Value Accounting and the likelihood of the stagnation of the economy failing a reformation of the banking regulations (Did I mention I am good at talking?) We'd agreed to disagree on the brilliance of Mad Men. sigh And from the
traffic news it was becoming clear that the entire central belt of Scotland had had a
total collapse of its traffic infrastructure .
Lesson 5. Sometimes you can be in the middle of a National Emergency and it is still boring.This leads on to
Lesson 6. You can always walk.Did I mention I'm good at walking? I can walk. Hell in these conditions I could walk faster than any other vehicle on the A80. I wished Big D well. He had to get to Glasgow, and on current calculations wasn't due to arrive there much before midnight. And he wished me well as I strode off into the dark and snowy wastes which were the fields behind the airport. Because I knew a shortcut back to Cheesetown. Ha! It's only 3 fields from the end of the runway. Which is why I also now know
Lesson 7. Walking alone over fields through in the dark is stupid. It is stupid because it is dark and the only reason you can still see anything is because of the white glow that comes from the snow, which is freezing, and over the top of your wellies. And the white glow and the freezing fog make it scary.
Super scary. Scary enough that I have to rehearse my happy thoughts for the hour it takes me to cross over to the old mill.
Thoughts like "Well if anything does happen to me at least it'll be an interesting death. If any bastard does leap out the bushes, hes not getting the iPhone...If anything does happen The Cherub is well provided for ...
Lesson 8 Never underestimate the comfort of adequate Life Assurance.I like to think that some sense in this somewhere, because I got home last night.
Hundreds didn't.Big D spent the night in his car somewhere on the M8. I like to think he had time to re-think his opinion of Mad Men.
