I should have packed a shovel this week...

Perhaps Britain is not as bad as we thought at coping with snowy conditions.  This was the scene on the main three lane motorway from Calais to Bruges, which also links with the main route to Paris.

Blizzard conditions, no salt and the line of cars had to make their own pathway.  Most scary were the speeding articulated trucks from Eastern Europe who are obviously used to these conditions, but felt very intimidating as they roared past the slowly moving cars. We couldn’t turn off as the slip roads looked treacherous with local cars sliding about at odd angles.

This was when I began to think I should have listened more closely to the local forecast for Northern France, and packed the full emergency supplies!

A brief spell of almost blue sky later in the day was soon forgotten as the massive snowflakes silently engulfed the car again and we were relieved to drive onto the safety of the Eurotunnel and emerge in the UK, 35 minutes later to a totally different climate and the start of a thaw across Kent.