Wednesday 18th January 2023

The alarm went off at six, giving me half an hour before breakfast. I opened the curtains, and it was dark. No idea if it had snowed any more. But I was prepared for the worse. I got dressed and went down the wide corridors to the dining area, where I feasted on fresh fruit and yogurt followed by bacon and sausage butties. And two pots of fresh coffee. By the time I was finishing the last of the coffee, my colleagues arrived, they could not offer me a lift to the office as they were traveling to the four corners of the country that evening, so would meet me there.

* Which meant having to program the sat nav. (no issues)

* Finding somewhere to refuel as the car was on fumes.

* And hope the roads were clear.

I went to my room, grabbed my work bag and put my coat on. Walked back out to reception and outside, where the frost had been hard, and frozen the evening snow into sheets of ice.

I scraped the car of snow and ice, warmed the engine up, and drove out via the one way road into the resort, so the wrong way. But no accidents.

The main roads were sheets of ice, but I took it easy, heading back to the motorway, and the services I knew were at the junction, though were usually jammed with traffic. But this morning, I was able to drive in with no issues, fill up and make my way round the double roundabout onto the motorway for one unction, then through the outskirts of Warrington, round endless roundabouts until I came to Birchwood, where once at the office, I found a place to park.

And inside, registered to visit so not to get a ticket.

That was the easy part.

We met up for a pre-audit meeting, seemed it was all set. The customer arrived, and we began the dance.

We danced to midday, had lunch of sandwiches, rolls and cakes, danced some more to half two, and that was that.

Nowhere near as bad as feared, but work to do.

The customer left, and the others started their drive to Ayr and beyond. I had a 15 minute drive back to the resort.

The snow meant the course had been closed all day, so the bars and restaurants were fairly empty. And despite eating well through the day, by six I was very hungry, so went for a small plate of fish and chips, but no cheese board this time.

Back to the room to watch football and a call to Jools.

Back home in the morning, while outside, snow fell.