Thu, 30 Jan 2003

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 21:49 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

London Grinds to a Halt ( 5 photos )
Walking back from our National Insurance interview this morning (in an original condition 50s government building, complete with loads of graffiti from those who obviously didn't get their government benefits), it started to snow. Just a little bit, but snow nonetheless. However, as I went in to work, it had stopped.
This afternoon, upon leaving work in town, I had had a look at this page, which shows in real time which tube lines have problems. Right now, it looks very bad. Every line where it goes above line in the North of London is closed.
It took me almost three hours to get home from work - a trip which took in the usual fifteen minute walk to Moorgate, then crammed onto a tube to Camden Town, change there to get crammed onto another tube to Golders Green, where the tube line comes out of the tunnel. That's as far as tubes are now going.
In good conditions, it's about a fifteen minute walk from there to home. Today it took me fourty-five minutes, slipping and sliding on the ice that covers everywhere. Not usually too much of a problem, however I injured my knee again on the weekend and it is not fully recovered.
Enough whinging from me, Ryan still isn't home and he has to drive on the icy roads, so hopefully he'll be ok.
As I mentioned, London really has ground to a halt - cars are going nowhere, motorways are closed, trains and tubes are wrecked and buses are being cancelled. As people have mentioned, all this because of two inches of snow!
The Central line is still closed and will remain that way for at least another two weeks, just about the same time that the Congestion Charge is due to start, so anyone who has to drive because they can't get a tube will have to pay for the privilege!
Sydney isn't looking so bad after all...


Now for the good news - Liz does her first shift as a fully-qualified nurse tomorrow! It's doing ward work at the Charing Cross hospital (which is nowhere near Charing Cross - it's actually near Hammersmith). However, if there's no tubes running, that will be a difficult journey to make half way across London for a few hours work. Still, it would be difficult to pull out of her first shift there, but since everyone else in London may be having the same problem.
Everyone in the house is secretly hoping that the tubes won't run tomorrow, so we can claim an extra day off!

And some more good news - we have our trip booked to Turkey! We fly Turkish Airlines (the only other option was British Airways, and they wouldn't accept non-British credit cards!) to Istanbul for six nights on the 18th of April, travel around to see lots of things (more details to come), and get back to London on the 29th of April.
We are of course looking forward to the trip, and the possibility of others coming and joining will only add to the excitement!

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