Fake Stag Do 2010/11

What a weekend!  It's now an annual tradition that we have one weekend per season where we get together for an Imps away game.  It's to fill in the hole left by the lack of stag dos now that most of us are married.  The fixture is picked totally at random and this year it was determined that we should go to Aldershot.  I organised a hotel in Guildford and trains between there and Aldershot - it was all in order and then the weather intervened!

The plan was for Tom to drive Harrison, Ted and me from Lincoln and we would meet Goldsy, Des, Will and Al in Guildford as they were travelling by train.  Before we even left Lincoln we found out that the game itself was cancelled and had to make a decision whether to carry on just for the craic or cancel.  Obviously we carried on.  As Tom pointed out, the football is his least favourite part of the weekend anyway.

We got going on the A1 and there was hardly any snow - we'd had all of ours two weeks before - but once we hit the M25 it started and it was heavy.  Tom's car was fine, it's front wheel drive with a heavy diesel engine over the driven wheels, so we were trundling along without too much trouble.  Of course it doesn't matter what car you're in if the road becomes blocked by other vehicles.  Sporty, rear wheel drive cars like BMWs and Mercs were finding it hard going and some were getting stuck.  We made the decision to abandon our effort to get to Guildford and turn in towards London instead - the logic was if we got stuck we'd rather be stuck in a big city than in the Surrey countryside.

The next junction was the M40 so we took it but pretty soon the traffic came to a complete stop.  We had plenty of time to discuss options and we decided we would bail out early, find the closest bed for the night and just get on with enjoying a few beers in the hope that the roads would be clear by the next morning.  I got on the phone and booked rooms at the Travelodge in Uxbridge - only a couple of miles from where we were stuck but we had to get off the motorway first.

The lay of the land meant that we could see the head of the queue about 1.5 miles up the road - just by the exit that we needed.  As the road began to go uphill it was causing lots of people to become stuck.  There was nothing else for it but to get up there and start pushing.  Tom stayed with the car but the rest of us headed up the road between the stop/start traffic.  Anyone that looked like they needed help got three lads pushing at the back of their car - and very grateful they were, we got lots of pips and thumbs ups for our efforts.

Eventually, Tom's car appeared at the front of the queue, he steamed up the slip road and we all jumped in.  We checked in to the hotel and really felt we deserved the ensuing beers and curry.