You can't see because of rain or fog or morning mist.How might bad weather affect you and your community or holiday destination?
1 Can't leave home for work. Trains cancelled. Planes not leaving and arriving at airports or diverted.
Answers
1 Plan your return. Leave home early. Leave your destination early to return home. Go to places you know.
2 Dress warmly and in white at night so cars can see you.
3 Don't walk home drunk from a pub along a canal or river. Ensure people leave in pairs and walk on the opposite side of the road to water. You don't want anybody slipping, lurching, walking the wrong way, or getting in an argument and giving just one push which knocks the other over.
4 Carry a torch.
Your mobile phone can be used as a torch. Either turn it on and just use the light. Or check its functions and memorise how to find the torch.
5 If planning to fly, check flights are operating before driving to the airport.
6 Carry on car journeys phones, phone chargers, charge holding packs, blankets and hot water bottles, a thermos of hot drinks, water, food and fruit.
7 Plan how you will go to the toilet. Either buy a emergency toilet device, or covered kids potty, or improvise a plastic bowl and plastic bag which seals or ties to act as an emergency toilet. (Why? For several reasons. So you don't go out in the cold. So you don't have to open your car and be vulnerable to robbers or wildlife. To avoid feeling embarrassed. If you are on a motorway you do not want to be on a video nor in a suburb on somebody's house camera. Nor arrested for being indecent. For privacy you can hide behind an opened umbrella. The bigger the better. A golf umbrella would be handy.
8 Have all your belongings in one bag in case you have to leave a damaged vehicle in a road accident or flood.
9 Go to the toilet before taking any journey, even a short ski lift.
Stories
1 Snow Slow Go In Snow And No Toilets in Bushey
I got stuck in snow in a traffic jam on a hill in Bushey coming home from work. I had said to myself, "It's getting dark. I'd better leave now. I won't stop to go to the toilet. I'm only ten minutes from home." I got stuck in a traffic jam beyond Chalk Hill driving past the lights at Bushey Arches. As the minutes ticked past, and I sat in a stationery car, I was really sorry I had not gone to the toilet earlier. No chance of getting out, shops and houses and pedestrians all around. I could not leave the car in case the traffic started moving again.
2 Abandoning My Car On The M4
I was in an accident in broad daylight on the M4 on the way to my Writers' Holiday in Wales. My car was rear-ended. Luckily I was well enough to continue my journey. I had all my holiday clothes in two small airline flight bags on wheels. Good. But my books were scattered about and heavy. I also had maps, umbrellas, my blanket and other items which I wanted to take with me in case I never saw my car again. (It ended up in a scrap yard, a long journey, two hours each way to retrieve my belongings, plus a half hour weight in a queue to get to my car.) I needed to pack and carry all my belongings from my small car into the small cabin of the tow truck which was dropping me off at the nearest station (Reading) to continue my journey. Moral Pack Light.
3 Our journey back from Europe to London was once affected by bad weather. We were diverted to Birmingham or Manchester. Fortunately nobody in my family had to be at work or school within the same day. But we had a driver waiting for us at the airport. On another occasion we were diverted but had left our car in the airport so we had to go back to get it. It took several weeks of correspondence to recover the extra parking charges. I think we did not even bother to claim for the far back to the airport to collect the car.
Tip
Even bad weather can be an opportunity for a photo. Rain, fog - you might have a news photo or a different view.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Please follow my posts and share them. Look on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram. Type in Angela Lansbury, Author, (or poet or travel writer) because there are four of us called Angela Lansbury, two writers, an actress and one other.
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