The forecast said a clear evening with no frost, so it did come as a bit of a surprise that it started snowing. A colleague popped into the meeting room to say it was settling and that he was off, but I didn't take it very seriously.
When we finally finished with management matters at 7pm there was 3-4 inches of snow, and the road was treacherous, but navigable at slow speed.
What I didn't know was that while I was working, the drivers of Gloucestershire were merrily abandoning or crashing their vehicles, and the gritting trucks were either getting stuck at the bottom of steep hills or sitting on roads blocked by the abandoned cars.
All of which is a bit of a preamble to the fact that it took me 2 hours to cover 10 miles last night. The last 30 minutes gained me 100 yards, so at that point I cut my losses and headed in the opposite direction and back to High Wycombe. Having two homes was a definite advanage last night. Apparently around 400 vehicles were stranded in total, with the drivers staying in hotels and pubs.
Memo for the weekend - put boots, extra clothing, waterproofs and chocolate in my car.
One of the places I passed on my journey was Northleach. In the winter of 1962 Northleach was completely cut-off for several weeks, which just goes to show - they don't make winters like they used to.