The day where it took forever to get to work !!!

Well that's a bit of an overstatement I suppose .... but this morning did not go according to plan.

I awoke bright and early and got my morning hating self breakfasted, showered and out the door at 08:15. Bang on time .... "Superb" thinks I but somewhere someone was having other ideas.

I travel a very busy stretch of motorway (The M40) every morning, and I have done for the last 13 years, so I'm used to random variations in traffic speed and density but this morning was a jam of quite gobsmackingly awesome proportions !!!!

I passed 2 gantries with information displays before hitting the traffic neither of which had any info concerning the automotive nightmare that lay in wait for me (Thanks for that Highways Agency)
And so ... a scant 20 minutes into my journey I came to a grinding halt and then over the course of the next couple of hours crept the remaining 20 odd miles to the office ... Yes that's right it took me about 2 hours to cover 20 miles !!!!

Fortunately I had my laptop with me, albeit, in the boot of the car. Not to worry though after remaining stationary for 10 minutes with the engine off (not normally something you can do in the outside lane of the M40 that's for sure !!) I go out and retrieved my trusty work unit and had a quick chat with a couple of the other stranded motorists and, much to our annoyance, a passing motorcyclist .....
Given the company I work for it's not unheard of for movies to be lurking in my bag and today was thankfully no exception so I sat down to watch Die Hard 4.0 (although I'm still mystified as to what that was doing in my bag).
Viewing however was cut short when the traffic started slooooooooowly moving again ... Just as the film was getting good too.

Much creeping and wondering what carnage lay ahead to cause this massive delay I got to the cause ...... A pile up consisting of at least 9 vehicles which didn't look to healthy at all.
A fairly broad spectrum of motorised conveyances went into making up this twisted snake of metal ... There were several cars, a few white vans and more worryingly a couple of lorries too.
All of which were looking very buckled and bent. Most worrying though was the poor car that had been sandwiched between the two lorries !!!!! I'm hoping the driver made it out in one piece but the car itself was destroyed and to add insult to injury I think it was an Aston Martin !! (I say think as it really was that bent out of shape) ...

Anyway with the chaos passed and all 4 lanes of the motorway now open I was free to finish my journey to work eventually walking through the office door at 11:15 ... Yup that's a journey time of 3 hours, when it normally takes me 45 minutes at the most.

Generally not a good way to start the day .... but when I think about it, it could have been worse.

I could have been driving the Aston ........