In the Land of Ice and Snow...

Well actually it's just about all gone.

I've spent the last two days in Newcastle. There was snow on the way - a few isolated drifts of grey, dirty snow piled up against walls and grassy banks on the A66 going over the moors and even more at Durham Services were I stopped on the way on Monday morning to wake myself up.

They had cleared the paths but the car park still had two inches of ice with a slushy top that made the car lurch sideways when I set off again and had to climb out of the hole in the ice it had settled into.

The snow is apparently coming back on Thursday. That's ok becuse I should have finished charging about the country by then and can knuckle down to planning an online delivery of the Project Management workshop which I've rashly agreed to do in four hourly instalments in the New Year.

Whilst I've been away Fran has put the Christmas tree up. Early reports were that it had survived the cats' attention for the first day...

Letchworth

It's been a busy old week - I've now got back from Letchworth, just about.

Horrible journey, it's a Friday night, it's half-term and the M6 was crawling. I shelled out my hard-earned to nip up the M6 Toll but as soon as it ended I was back down into first and second gears and that's how I stayed until Stoke on Trent.

There had been some sort of incident on the slip road of Junction 15 and it had caused a rare old tail back. It took me over 6 hours to get home.

Anyway this is where I've been - the Goldsmith Centre of North Herts College. Photo from Flickr, courtesy of John Sanderson. I didn't take any photos down there. Some nice scenery down that way though.

Tom Tom was navigating which meant going over lots of those stupid bumps in the road that are supposed to calm traffic and instead only do your suspension in and make a row, annoying anyone unlucky enough to have one outside their house...

So I'm not quite sure where I was, but at one point there was a gorgeous stone-built red-tiled country church with a rather strange looking tower, seen against a green field and wonderful blue sky. I almost stopped but the thought of traffic building on the M6 kept me going. In the event it wouldn't have made much difference!

I delivered a session on Risk Management at a IT Technical Forum organised by the local JISC Regional Support Centre. They call themselves RSCs, but to anyone outside the Further Education Sector that normally prompts some conversation about Shakespeare...

Busy weekend looming as well so no rest for the wicked! Will try to keep up with the entries!

Motorway Idiots

I spent yesterday evening driving back from Glasgow in a tropical rainstorm.

It never ceases to amaze me how suicidal some drivers are. I must drive 35,000-40,000 miles a year and doing that sort of mileage you see your fair share of smashes, upside-down cars and even cars/lorries on fire.

Unfortunately they are not always the ones who deserve it.

I'm not a slow driver but if you are driving fast then you have to look a long way ahead and react to what is happening. At one point 60-65 was as fast as it was safe to go in the weather conditions. The road was absolutely covered in water and anyone on worn tyres is straight away at more risk of aquaplaning.

Yet people were zooming past me, doing the odd thing like heading off to overtake a lorry who was in the centre lane then slamming on brakes when they suddenly couldn't see anything because of the spray from its wheels. Or driving up at 80-90 behind someone doing 60-70 overtaking in the fast lane and leaving it until the last minute to brake instead of slowing down gradually. Or forcing a driver in the central lane to suddenly brake down 20mph because they were unwilling to slow down 5mph themselves.

As far as I'm concerned if you're are doing more than 70, you should be watching for people needing to pull out into your lane and it should be you that slows down if necessary.

Consideration - that's what it's all about.

Still, all in all it was a quiet night. 193 miles and I only saw two accidents... There again, from those 4 cars that probably left at least 8-16 disgruntled or frightened or hurt people, counting occupants and immediate family at home wondering where someone was.