Hiking and jackknifing

The snow is finally melting. We are now driving on actual tarmac rather than spinning around on half a foot of compressed snow and ice. I've never been so happy to drive unhindered in my life. No more digging my car out of a giant layers of snow or walking home to East Kilbride on the expressway. Well, not for the moment anyway.
On Monday night, after the biggest snowfall in decades, the expressway, the main dual carriageway into and out of the East Kilbride, had become near inpassable due to the weather.
Barry, Paul and myself walked home to East Kilbride, abandoning the cars in the work car park, hiking up the dual carriageway under a ghostly mist which hung down threateningly over the faded lights standing tall overhead in the darkness over the thick snow covered road, among the abandoned cars and the fellow walkers.
The road going into East Kilbride had been clogged up not only by the weather but by a Morrisons lorry jackknifing and the remaining traffic piling up behind, slowing to a near complete standstill. Not sure what was slowing all the outgoing traffic on the other side of the road up.
It may have been another jackknifed lorry. A Sainsburys one maybe. The two drivers having it out in the middle of the road. The abandoned cars all over the expressway only parked up to watch the big fight. Harry Hill shouting from behind a temporary desk in a nearby field.
Usually this dual carriageway would be buzzing with life. Traffic of all shapes and sizes blasting up and down it on either side. Hiking home on it all seemed very surreal. It reminded me of 'The Day After Tomorrow', the rather drab, silly movie with Dennis Quaid, in which he plays a climatologist who goes out in search of his son after a giant storm which throws the world into another ice age. Or something. Storms, snow, people collapsing in the snow. The collapsed people puffing and gasping, accidentally brushing some snow aside underneath them only to discover that their lying on the glass roof of central station. At which point it starts cracking...
Either that or a snowy version of 'The Day of the Dead'. Zombie like figures stumbling about the snow covered expressway wondering what to do.
It all puzzled me a little. We're on the expressway. That town over there, which you must of been driving towards with the high rise flats, is East Kilbride. These are legs. Those things at the end are feet. Why not try that walking thing?
Okay, there may have been the slight issue of abandoning your beloved motor, but it was either that or sitting in the beloved motor for an extremely long time which, in the end, would make it extremely unbeloved.
For instance, Ka hates Gillian's poor little car now as a result of sitting on a roundabout at Hamilton's Asda car park for at least three hours on the same night. Sitting anywhere near Hamilton's Asda is horrifying at the best of times what with all the Zombies that usually shop there.
Unfortunately I often find myself parking in Hamilton Asda, thanks to Ka who works in the town, and unfortunately I think my parked car has been hit by a 'fellow' shopper at least 50% of the time. Not because of my parking, you understand, but because most drivers in Hamilton, cannot drive nevermind park. They simply put their pedal down, turn the steering wheel and hope for the best. A seven year old in a dodgem would cause less damage to another vehicle than a Hamilton Asda shopper.
Anyway, thanks to the weather and the congested traffic the threat of having to spend the night at work became all too horrible to bear and Ka and Gillian sat it out, eventually getting home four and a half hours later than planned. It's amazing what folk will do in order to not spend the night at work.
It's also amazing what folk will do when not at work. Apparently there's folk going round in Kent somewhere nicking snowmen!