This picture was taken last night from my office window when I finally got home. What a journey – it’s forced me to come over all tabloid for the post title!

I set off for South Mimms Services (where I was meeting Adam to pick up Bob) at just before 6pm. It had started snowing slightly but was nothing at all to bother about. I had the heaters on in the 405 and it was a very pleasant journey until I hit the M25. I can only presume that there had been an accident because the traffic quickly became stationary. I decided to jump off at Junction 26 and suing my rudimentary knowledge of Hertfordshire headed to Junction 23 via A-Road. I’d never been to Cockfosters Tube Station before! Eventually I rejoined the motorway and it was clear for the final section before South Mimms. I have no idea whether it was faster than sitting in the jam but it was more interesting and I arrived in plenty of time.

South Mimms is apparently a hot-spot for deals involving drugs and guns so I enjoyed sitting in the thickening snow looking suspicious waiting for Adam to arrive. When he did we swapped cars and we went over the things that he’d done to her over the past three weeks (I’ll write about them in another post later) and I set off home. By now it was about 8.15pm and it was still snowing.

It should take about thirty minutes to get to Birchanger Services from South Mimms. Nearly an hour and a half later I ‘phoned Helen to say I was considering booking into the hotel for the night. The snow wasn’t that deep on the M25/M11 but it was very slippy, really only possible to drive in the grooves made by other cars, and full of cars and wagons going at such speed so as to make it difficult for me to drive at the (much lower) speed I wanted to. I know that as I drive Bob more I’ll get used to the steering vagueness and body roll but at the moment we’d had possession of her for such a short time that I’m not there yet. Throw compacted snow, wind, poor visibility and massive trucks at speed into the equation and it was almost too much for me. I’ll happily admit to being scared for much of the journey, and not in the rollaphobia way mentioned before here, but in a very real way. I just didn’t want to have to drive so fast, but when you’ve got an articulated lorry inches from your back bumper that’s not easy.

I skidded around Birchanger Services and parked up (pictured right). Called Helen, bought some food and a magazine from WHSmith and went to drive around to the hotel car park. I didn’t really want to stay there but… When I got to the hotel car park a BMW was sliding backwards down the slope up into it. It was then that I decided that I’d just have to go for it and try and get home. If it meant driving at 30 all the way then so be. Another BMW was in front of me on the roundabout leaving the service station. Pulling away slowly the driver got it completely sideways at no more than 5mph. Nice.

I wish I’d had a someone else in the car as I drove along the A120 at 30mph following the rapidly snowing-over tracks of the car that had passed by ages before. The line of cars behind me seemed, from my snowed up mirrors, to go on forever but it’s says something of the conditions that in that 20 mile stretch only three of four cars risked overtaking – the outside lane was just thick snow. As I got closer to Halstead the roads became less snowy and the drizzle had turned the covering to slush. I arrived home at just before 11pm (To Helen’s surprise – the last she’d heard I was staying at the hotel!) and spoke to Dad who’d had similar issues on the A14 in Cambridgeshire.

Last time I wrote about an epic journey in Bob the reasons were all Bob but this time she was faultless. She drove beautifully, didn’t miss a beat despite the conditions or the way I had to drive her, and generally did herself proud.

Roll on better weather, and more Bob Adventures!