Yet More Snow Tuesday

I was woken up by an excited Little Prince whispering that he didn't have to go to school. I'd heard the phone ring, and it was a member of staff informing us that school is closed, it seemed strange as the majority of the staff live very very close by. The High School and the College were open! So I swapped over today, Drama Teen went out and Little Prince stayed home. I was going to go over to OUR shop, but I didn't want to go with Little Prince as he gets so hyped up in the shop!! The snow was melting and the new snow wasn't sticking, so I decided that after Princess Lollipop had her nap that we would go out and buy the Christmas decorations for OUR shop. Princess Lollipop was fast asleep and I was about to start sewing name tapes in Little Prince's new school trousers, and shortening some of his original pairs. That plan was scuppered when the phone rang and woke Princess Lollipop up, I wasn't in the room and Little Prince was trying to answer the phone, so by the time I got there Princess Lollipop was crying hysterically. Once I'd calmed her down there was no chance of getting her back to sleep, so we started to get ready to go out when the phone rang again. This time it was Drama Teen saying College was closing early and could we pick her up.

Once we were finally in the car, I found one of my front tyres was almost flat!! I drove very very slowly to the garage, only to find that their air line was out of order!! I filled up with diesel and drove very very slowly to the next garage, whose air line was working. We then whizzed down the motorway to Drama Teen's College to collect her and then on to the first shop. I wanted large-ish decorations that won't look lost in OUR shop window. I found a Father Christmas and a Snowman that looked great, but not much else! Almost everything I saw had glitter on it - and I don't want glitter all over the shop, as it will get in Princess Lollipop's hair and be a nightmare to get out!! I found a lovely bright red cushion with black embroidered flowers, that will look great on the sofa. I didn't find much else so we went across the road to the soft furnishing shop too. They didn't have a dedicated area for Christmas decorations they were scattered all over the shop, so it was hard to find anything. I did get a red sparkly throw for OUR shop sofa and Drama Teen found a Christmas present for one of her friends. And just before we were leaving I found the softest, most gorgeous bright red sheepskin rug - so I blew the budget and bought that for OUR shop too!!

We were at the checkout paying for our purchases when we heard a loud noise outside. It was a helicopter landing in the carpark of the shop we had started in! When we'd finished I drove over there so that Little Prince could see the helicopter up close!! He was very impressed :-)

We then drove to yet another shop, as I still hadn't found a tree topper that I liked!! And by now Drama Teen had announced that she had plans to go to the cinema with her Boyfriend, in his town! I made her ring Mr Messy and check with him if he thought the weather would be ok later as she wanted picking up at 9pm. We went back on the motorway and drove to Boyfriend's town, it was snowing a little more heavily now and I took it really easy on the motorway, barely getting over 50mph. We were early to the cinema so we nipped to the Supermarket to get some shopping done. While we were there Mr Messy rang and said the weather had turned really bad and that he wasn't prepared to pick Drama Teen up later, so she couldn't go to the cinema. She was fairly upset, but held it together well.

Mr Messy had said it was pretty difficult for him to get home from OUR shop, and had to go the long way round and advised us to do the same. The motorway was even worse this time and I ended up driving at 30mph and I wasn't getting overtaken very much!! The slip road off the motorway lived up to its name and was hard to get up! We drove slowly through the village (B) but when we drove past the Pub at the exit to the village we got stuck in a stationary line of traffic. We barely moved for the next 20mins and in the end turned back round and went back to the motorway. Once again we barely got over 30mph, and when we were about a mile from the exit roundabout we again hit stationary traffic! I was beginning to wonder if we would ever get home!!! It took ages to get to the roundabout and to get over it and to our exit. The road we took is a fairly major one out of Drama Teen's College town, but it was covered in a couple of inches of snow and quite slippery. When we turned off the major road to go along the river and through the villages the roads were even worse. The snow was coming down very heavily and it was a scary drive! At one point Drama Teen saw a village green covered in fresh untouched snow, so I stopped the car so that she and Little Prince could get out and make snow angels!! They got back into the car wet and laughing :-) A little further on, just as we were about to enter the next village, Little Prince announced he wanted the loo!! I don't blame him we'd been in the car for hours at the point!! When we got to the other side of the village and away from civilisation, I pulled over to let him out!! There was no way he would have been able to manage to wait till we got home at the speed I was having to drive at and it seemed the only solution!!

Once he was back in the car I tried to drive off, but I was stuck!! Even in my 4x4 my wheels were spinning and I skidded and slipped back onto the road. The snow was getting deeper and coming down more and more heavily and I was getting really worried. I had to appear calm so that the children didn't get worried, but I seriously wished that I'd stayed in College town and booked into a hotel for the night!! We barely saw another car the whole journey, apart from a van in the ditch!! Not a great place to have an accident or anything - no one would see us or be around to help us - cheery thoughts to drive to!!

We finally made it to our own village and I was so relieved that I lost concentration a little and skidded!! OK back to driving like a snail and concentrating very very hard!! Then on the very last corner before our house, I braked and nothing happened!! Thoughts of the recent accident involving a motorbike at the same spot were rushing through my mind!! Luckily I was going so slowly that I didn't hit anything and the car came to a gentle stop very quickly. It took a bit of faffing about backwards and forwards to get round the corner safely and I couldn't even see the kerb to park outside our house!! The drive took over two hours, two of THE most frightening hours of my life!! I collapsed on the sofa for ages while Mr Messy got Little Prince to sit and watch You've Been Framed on TV. Once that had finished he got Little Prince to bed and then got Drama Teen to come downstairs and look after Princess Lollipop while we emptied the grocery shopping out of the car and put away in the kitchen. We left the Christmas decorations in the car as Mr Messy is probably going to have to use my car to get to OUR shop tomorrow, if he can get there at all that is!!! I can't believe how deep the snow is and the websites already say that Drama Teen's College and Little Prince's School will be closed tomorrow. At least we are all stocked up with food and the cars are both full of fuel, for all the good that will do us!!!