the road is there, she's waiting...

the road is there, she's waiting

patiently, not judging

knowing i will come...

the big snow in the big smoke

can't get away from it, it's the first thing people start talking about, the national british past-time that is moaning about the weather! apparently it's the coldest winter since the ice age and i haven't seen snow like this since... well, last february.


ok, ok, then it was a helluva lot that came down one night and paralysed the transport network in london for a couple of days, and then it thawed out and never came back. this time round, we've had a couple of big falls and no real thaw, and last night, we got another 5 inches or so. and no chance of it going away too soon either. the big freeze continues.


xmas hols, i went to see eliza up in chester, which is near north wales. beautiful old town, with the distant welsh hills as the backdrop. it was an adventurous trip hitching up there. i almost didn't go cos of the freezing weather, but as it wasn't snowing (and it was the winter solstice), i thought i'd take a chance. a couple of buses to get to the start of the m1 at staples corner, and the very small lay-by just before the roundabout.


that lay-by is a blessing for hitchers... it has no other purpose really. double red lines means absolutely no stopping, so it's not a really fantastic place. but now better than where i usually stood to hitch up the m1 which was right on the hard shoulder on the slip road itself. unfortunately, there's a cctv camera pointing right at you where it's good to stand, and last time i hitched from here, the pigs came within 5 minutes and told me to hop it... to the lay-by!

i was there for an hour freezing my fingers off my m1 sign when a van pulls into the lay-by. liw, the plumbing engineer, saves my life. "i'm going up to wigan to get my power-flush machine repaired", he said. "nice one", i replied, "i have to get to chester... can you can drop me at knutsford services". liw was a character for sure. he was constantly on his hands free phone, making appointments for plumbing jobs, organizing a couple of dates with woman along the way.... he dropped me off at a chippy in stoke, and whilst i stuffing my face with chips, he was getting tea and "desserts" at his 'internet dating' friend's place. no sooner are we are back in the van and back on the m6 than he's on the phone again to line up his next conquest, somewhere in chesire. unfortunately, she was busy and so no diversion into chesire, which would've been good for me. "no problem, i'll get her on the way down", he said.


it was amazing scenery going up the m1, the countryside was covered in a blanket of snow, the trees seemed like they had been sprinkled with icing sugar. through birmingham, there wasn't so much of the white stuff, and the weather had definitely cleared up going up the m6 with some bright sunshine. of course, by the time we got to knutsford services, the weather had completely changed and it started snowing heavily.


i got my sign for the m56 out and someone stopped... but they were going in the direction of manchester, not chester. half an hour of getting nowhere, time for plan b. i walked out of the services to the main a-road coming from manchester to chester, but at the junction, there was no place to pull over. the sun had come back, and then gone again, and this time the snow came with a chilling wind. i walked down to a lay-by 400m away and got lucky after half an hour... a taxi pulled up. "can you give us a lift to the next village mate?" jamal was cool, he drove me to the bus station in nantwich. "people are a bit backward here", he said, "they'd never give you a lift; if you come up from london, you should take the exit at crewe and come that way". "i'll remember for next time", i said.


the weather was the same in nantwich so i opted to take the bus to chester. it would soon be dark too. about a couple of miles out of nantwich, the sun came out again and stayed all the way to chester. i did a quick busking stint waiting for eliza, and found that the people were in good generous spirits. merry xmas!


eliza was sharing a house with 2 chinese girls (who were also care assistants for the elderly like herself), one chinese and one english guy. a typical badly maintained bare minimum rental house. i was there a week to see out the xmas period, we both were cooking and plenty of food. "we have to get into the traditional spirit of indulgence at this time of year", she said. eliza had just got back from a week-long holiday in the gambia, and had brought back some african spices and foods. like yam. she made a real nice gambian dish one time, and then a traditional polish dish with sauerkraut and polish sausages. she was working night shifts so during the days when she was sleeping, i was pottering around chester. nice old town, well preserved tudor buildings, cathedral, and a river.




no more busking cos after the short busking spell, i noticed the drum was sounding slightly flat and my worst fears were confirmed when i discovered a crack in the side... from when the drum had rolled off the seat on the bus. bummer! i got some glue, and needles from the chemists, fixed it up, but when i put the skin back on and the put on the tension, i could see that the crack was worse than i thought. nothing for it but to wait till i got back to london.



i made my way to the hitching point, and luckily the weather was sunny; however, getting away from chester was a bit difficult, and i got a few racist idiots giving me the finger as i stood hitching at the roundabout. yeah, it's easy to be brave from a distance, isn't it? my response now is just to turn around and laugh at them as they speed away, knowing that they would be watching in the rear-view mirror. nothing worse than being laughed at. ok, a brick through the windscreen could be worse, sure.... i should be more prepared!
after an hour or so, i got a lift to tarporley, where it was pretty misty. still hitchable though, and i got a good lift from there to the bottom of the m6. waiting at corley services, kynda and his son jay gave me a lift to toddington services. it was dark now and no sooner had i got out of the van and walked to the exit road than i got a lift. baah, originally from ghana, was luckily heading in the direction of uxbridge. "i'm going to see a friend in harrow first, but i can drop you off near ruislip", he said. another serendipitous hitching adventure. i walked half an hour and was home.



new year's eve... well, long gone are the days of getting rat-arsed and dodging the horizontally fired fireworks on the freezing streets of a city. alone, indoors, hibernating. goodbye to another false holiday.