Frozen for six hours with half a kinder egg.

This morning I woke up a little late and was in a rush to leave the house. As I walked to my car I realised that I’d probably need to clear some ice off it. Just before I did I snapped the above picture and planned to post it online with a caption of “Well, at least -4 degrees is pretty.”

I’m sitting at 10.09pm in a car, 10 kilometres from home, and I have changed my mind about it being pretty.

Shortly after 4pm my colleague, whom I brought to work this morning, came into my office and said that her dad had called saying the roads were really bad, like glass, and she decided to sleep in the office building (there’s a little flat in the attic).

I decided to head home but didn’t even leave the town the office is in before I was turned around by an accident (I wasn't involved - it had just closed the bridge) and experienced my car’s ABS.

Oh and getting into my car was an adventure in and of itself – it was literally an ice sheet. Freezing rain and a high of -2 today led to just one big ice sheet over the car.

I headed back to the office and got a lift with Shay, who lives in the same town as me. I'm so grateful I could jump in his car - for the first ten minutes or so me leaving my car at the office didn't seem really justified. It normally takes 30-40 minutes to do the 35km route and we were making good time.

We’ve now been in the car five hours… We have moved less than 0.5km in the last three hours. We’re 10km from home and have heard the road will be closed for another two hours.

We’ve had six police cars, two salting/gritting trucks, two tow trucks, an ambulance, and two fire engines pass us! And by pass us I mean navigate through the two lanes of traffic. It has been crazy.

We also spent time texting Daniel, who was stuck for around five hours on another nearby road. He had two labradoodles in the car! 

We've also all started planning the snacks we're going to keep in our cars... In Shay's car we had a kinder egg that had been smashed already. My car has a few emergency cereal bars but I'm definitely going to throw in another warm jumper.

I think this part is my favourite of the journey - for a long time we were beside a guy with a trailer filled with live fish. After we'd been stopped around an hour he got out and on top of the trailer, opening it and pushing a brush in there to break the ice. 

And, yes, we're writing blog posts in the car.

Our friend Martina is also keeping us updated - the photo above shows a Czech news website and we are the story along the top!

Always an adventure! And welcome December!

---

At 11.20pm, over six hours after Shay and I left the office, I walked in through my door! They opened up the road and we got home. Many prayers were answered and we are safe! I'm so very glad I decided to turn back and drive with Shay. 

It doesn't look like it'll get above freezing tomorrow, and our usual Tuesday morning meeting had been cancelled when we'd only been stuck in the car two hours. So it'll be a day of working from home (and my boss has already approved a late start!) and hopefully I'll be able to pick up my car later this week!