Snow

I can hear the shouts already from you boys up country” call that bloody snow, its over a foot deep up here” Yes I know the snow has been bad in many parts of the country, but we have not had any here in the west country.

On Monday when I drove along the coast road from Bridport to Weymouth I stopped at the top of Abbotsbury Hill and took another shot of the sun rising. I got back in the van and the news was full of all the trouble the snow was causing up country.

I might as well have been in a different world as for most of Monday I was driving around in winter sunshine and all the traffic updates on radio Two were full of snow related problems in the rest of Britain and Scotland.

Well today I got a taste of the first winter snow down here, well not in South Devon as that only had a light dusting this morning, but surprising in Bridport, Weymouth and Dorchester. There was some snow in Yeovil and once again as was the case last winter, it was the Penn Mill Industrial estate that was a real problem.

The big question everyone was asking yesterday, was could Dave get himself up in the morning and get ready for work or not. Carol was admitted into the hospital yesterday to undergo an emergency operation today (she is back home now) The thing is she gets me up every morning for work, does my packed lunch, makes my flask and has a cup of coffee waiting for me when I fall down the stairs still half asleep.

One thing she had to do before she went in yesterday dinnertime, was to show me how to set the alarm clock as its something I have never had to do in all the years I have been with Carol.

I came back from the hospital last night and did all the things I needed to do and was up doing a few things on the forum until after 12 am. I then got into bed and found it hard to get to sleep without Carol and before I knew it, that bloody alarm clock was going off at 5am.

I knew I had to get straight out of bed or I would fall back to sleep again and anyway I had so much to do. Do Cleo’s foods (our parrot) make the bed, do my packed lunch and make my flask I then looked out of the front room window and saw it was snowing. It was not very heavy but was starting to settle of the ground and I wondered then, if I would have any problems out on the road during the day.

I was surprised there was hardly any snow on the ring road or in Newton Abbot and even more surprised there was none around Telegraph hill. It was not until I got past Honiton that I started to see some real snow and when I got to Bridport at 7.10am, I started having a few problems.

I was going to a call that is out in the sticks and I have to go into Bridport to get on the road that takes me to it. The road was bad enough to drive on but when I saw the state of the long drive up to the company I was going too, I feared I would never get the van up it.

Still I decided to give it a go and only got a few yards when I came across the owner of the company with a snow clearing machine walking towards me. “ Keep your van in the tracks Dave my 4x4 has made as I don’t want the snow compacted or I’ll never get it clear with this machine” Yes fully understood, only my van is front wheel drive and I only got halfway up the drive before I was slipping and sliding sideways and in danger of damaging the van.

I could go no further and handed him a repaired drill and started trying to go backwards down the drive. This I was able to do and the next big question was how bad the coast road would be and that Abbotsbury Hill.

Why the coast road never gets gritted or treated I will never know and it was a real struggle getting along it. Then I came to the top of Abbotsbury Hill and was really unsure if I would drive down it. Once you start going down when its bad, you can’t use the brakes and I have seem a number of cars upside down in the fields beside the road, over the years, as they lost control going down the hill. There was not a lot of snow on the hill, it was the ice that was the real problem.

I wanted to get a picture anyway from the top and as I was taking it a 4x4 was starting to go down the hill. He was taking it so slowly but got down so I decided to go for it and keep everything crossed I could.

Boy was I glad when I got to the bottom of the hill as from there to Weymouth, I knew there were no other parts of the road I would really need to worry about. Weymouth was not too bad to get around and the next problem I had was in Dorchester.

I really should not have driven into the company’s car park in Dorchester, but to be fair I could not leave the van up on the road as the road had been reduced to a single track by the snow. I got in OK, but could not get out and back onto the road.

The van was just going sideways and then from nowhere I saw six lads coming to my aid. Top lads as they soon had me back on the road and I then was able to continue onto Yeovil. I only had a few problems In Yeovil and did not get stuck and after leaving Yeovil and heading for Weston Super Mare, there was not so much snow around.

I heard on the radio the snow was bad in North Devon and that’s where I will be tomorrow morning, so it could be another fun Friday to look forward too.



Mondays view from Abbotsbury Hill





Looking out from my front door at 5.15am this morning in Paignton.





Standing next to the Toolfix unit in Newton Abbot looking across the yard.




Stuck on the driveway in Bridport.





Abbotsbury Hill this morning







In Weymouth




Lastly three shots taken in Yeovil