We had a slight problem with the snow on Sunday too. Only two of the four Euro drivers made it into work, plus the UK driver who comes in to let us in and lock up after us. He had to take a load to Swiss instead of going back home.
It took me an hour to get to work, instead of the usual 45 mins. When I was approaching the entrance to the estate I saw there was a Volvo estate car trying to drive onto the local road. It wasn’t until I had passed the car, intending to drive around it, that I realised the car was on the wrong side of the road. That lump in the snow back there was the curb, so I had to keep going until I could turn round. The Volvo was still there, so I drove round it and stopped, climbed out, collared two people in a 4x4 who had just turned into the estate and got the car moving. An old couple had come out for a drive, to see the snowy scenery and then realised that they were having trouble 
, tried to turn and got stuck in the snow. I had to get them shifted though, I wouldn’t have been able to get my artic past their car. Then I drove round to the yard.
The snow was knee deep in the yard. Richie, the UK driver had tried moving a wagon and got stuck in the snow. After a bit of judicious digging of snow, we got the wagon back where it had started. Then we started digging a couple of tyre tracks, to get the wagon he was taking out of the yard. By now, Murdo had made it into the yard, so there was three of us taking it in turns to shovel snow with the two shovels we had. We got Richie’s wagon out of its parking space after a couple of attempts, once he was straight and lined up in the track we had dug he could get a bit of momentum and just drive out with little problem, he had to get to Hull so just kept going once he was out of the yard.
We dug another set of tracks for Murdo, but his wagon was parked beside the gate and had to do a 90 degree turn. With his trailer tyres on clear tarmac and his tractor tyres on compressed snow, he couldn’t get enough traction to keep going. He got stuck, half way through the gate and we just couldn’t get him moving again. We called out a friend of his, who works locally, to try and tow him out with a rough terrain fork lift. That got him out of the gateway, with more judicious digging of snow, but they both lost traction on the compressed snow from Richie getting away. The fella with the fork lift went and got one of his mates with a small 4x4 tractor shovel. He shifted a lot of snow, then had enough traction to get Murdo moving and out onto the estate road.
Then the tractor shovel cleared enough snow for me to drive out with very little problem. We had to pull another unit and trailer out because it was blocking me in. We had to leave that one on the hard standing in front of the office block. There was no way we were going to attempt to turn it round and drive it back in, nor were we going to try and reverse it back in either. Unfortunately, I was to busy to think of taking photos until I put my feet up on the ferry, with a nice cold glass of beer 
, sorry.
I got into the yard at about 10am, we got away for the ferry at 2pm. I think they held the ferry back for us. You need to be booked in for the ferry before 5pm, we drove in at 5.30 and didn’t need to go to the office and book in. The office manager was waiting for us with our tickets and booking cards in his hand. He just handed them to us as we drove past 
, onto the way bridge and straight round to reverse onto the ferry. As soon as Murdo’s bumper cleared the ramp, they started raising it. By the time we had sorted out our few bits and pieces to take with us, the ferry was on its way.
This was our first crossing on this ferry. It was the “new” DFDS ferry, the Prince of Scandinavia. It turns out that the new ferry isn’t that new after all. It was the Brittany Ferries Val de Loire, which used to be on the Santander crossing I think. Talking to the DFDS crew, who I knew from the ferry this one is replacing, this one had been absolutely filthy. They had been trying to scrub it clean for days. Although it wasn’t as clean as they would like, it was just about acceptably clean when they brought it into service,today.
After chatting in the TruckNet chat room till 1 o’ clock on Sunday morning, I let my dog out for a quick “breath of fresh air” before bed. There was no snow what so ever. When I woke up at 7.30 ish, there was a good 6 inches of snow and by the time I had eaten a bit of breakfast and sorted everything out another three inches had fallen. Edinburgh was practically clear, but Stirling was about knee deep. Travelling south on the A1, the further south from Edinburgh we went the less snow there was, there was a bit at Alnwick but the roads were clear, so nothing to worry about. My daughter lives in ■■■■■■■■■■■ and was snow bound, Glasgow it seems got even more snow than Stirling, the airport was shut for most of the day anyway.
Maybe it should be turned into some sort of extreme sport, half an inch of snow and the country grinds to a halt. 