First day in the grown-up job

Today was supposed to be my first day at my first-ever grown-up job. Ooh! But I say supposed because:

Fact 1: I live in the UK.
Fact 2: We cannot cope with snow.
Fact 3: It is currently blizzarding.
Fact 4: I did not have my first day today.

Now, I tried to get there. After having to endure the "will the trains be running?" and "you need to get the snow off your car" remarks at the ungodly hour of blurgh this morning (for the record, I am not a morning person), I was über tetchy because a) I could see the snow for myself and b) the rail websites/phone lines were jammed. I had no idea whether the trains were running. Hmph.

To set the scene, I currently live in-between Leeds and York. If it wasn't so grey and I could see further than five metres out of the window, I should be able to see the start of miles and miles of countryside that stretches to York. I also live on a hill, which has some wonderful 45 degree bends. Ever noticed that in the country? Tiny roads that are never reassuringly straight. Oh no. Hair-pin bends all the way. And yes, I know it's land boundaries, but it's a pain. As for what I was wearing. Why, my nice first-day outfit and WELLIES.

Obviously I couldn't find the scraper. It's okay, I used one of my Havaiana flip-flops to belt it off won't be needing those for a while). I manage to get round the hair-pin bend and on to the hill which takes me down to the main road. Except, what on earth are the cars in front of me doing? Why, they are sliding all over the road! I mean, it looked fun, but I'm a grown-up now with a grown-up job - I didn't want to play the "let's mount the pavement without touching the steering wheel and avoid that pedestrian/lamp post/parked car" game. However, like a child forced into playing with children they don't want to play with, I soon joined in. Fun? No. Weird? Yes. I had a brief whiney-whimper, but I soldiered on. Made it to the main road.

Ah, the main road. There's one main road in T and all the houses are off this road. I live at the bottom and it stretches up-hill for about a mile before it goes down-hill into G for half a mile. You can then go left to P, the motorways and the train station, or right to elsewhere. However, no gritters had been out* and the traffic was crawling up-the-hill. At this point, I had already been on the road twenty minutes and managed a grand total of 200 metres - my total drive should take less than that.

Needless to say, I was panicking. My first day - first day - and I can't even get there. It then took me another ten minutes to get twenty metres up the hill, to which I exited right and drove slowly back to my house (more hair-pin bends), as did five cars in front of me and a few behind. Glad to see it's not just me who isn't a brave little solider. Even if I had somehow managed to get to the station for the next train, say my car had turned into a magical flying car... yep, the trains are cancelled.

Wonderful. So, I'm stuck at home for the day. My new boss was very nice, but I still felt like it was personally *my* fault that the snow has happened (so, sorry if your train/bus/plane was cancelled today, my bad!) Of all the days for this to happen ... I just hope that I can get there tomorrow and have my first day because it is *still* snowing. *sigh* I miss the sun.

How's your Monday going? Were you affected by the snow? And does anyone have a first day horror story to cheer me up? Pretty, please!


* Of course not! You don't have to bother with gritters in the sticks. Or pot-hole free roads. All part of the rustic charm, isn't it! Pfiut.