Thursday, December 28, 2006

Fog...

It's been an odd couple of weeks. There was a family crisis and on several days I had to belt up and down the motorway between London and Wales -- a round trip of about 350 miles. On the Friday before Christmas, I came back in the early evening, and there was thick fog all the way. Once I got back into London, there was terrible traffic congestion, and I turned off the motorway to try to cut through to my home in the north of the city. It was almost impossible to recognise familiar roads. The fog was thick and greeny-yellow, reminiscent of the famous -- or notorious -- pea-soupers they used to have in Dicken's day. And the smell was terrible.

Anyhow, it's all cleared away now. I was working on Christmas day, but my family had kept me some food which I had at eleven at night. I really enjoyed it though!

I'm also working on New Year's Day, a shift which means getting up at 0530, so I don't think I'll be attending any wild parties the night before!

6 comments:

Kit Wylde said...

I am glad you are safe and sound, but sorry to hear about the family tragedies.

I know what you mean by fog. I live in the San Joaquin Valley in California. Although the fog has not been as bad this year as some years, it's still pretty hazardous to drive in. One year, we had to pull off the road at the last minute as someone didn't see the center line and was driving on our side. Luckily, we were doing about 15-20 mph at the time, and the other car wasn't going much faster. It could have been ugly.

Kit

Unknown said...

I had no idea fog brought a smell with it! Sure, there's the "humidifier" scent of moist air, but a yucky smell? So bizarre!

I have to ask - what did it smell like?

Kit Wylde said...

Our fog doesn't have much of an odor, unless you are near a dairy or cow/horse pasture. LOL Then again, the smog has worsened over the past several years, so there tends to be a smog smell. What's that? I can't really describe other than chemical-ly. It's not very pleasant, and certainly not the fog of my youth. But if you travel out to the country, this disappears a bit more.

Kit

Unknown said...

"The Fog of My Youth" is SO a book title. Literary maybe.

Marci Baun said...

LOL Emily. That reminds me of when I was a child and attended a sleepover. We watched the movie "The Fog". It was in late October, and the fog was thick. So thick that when the lot of us crazy 11 year olds went outside into the fog, we had to hold hands because we couldn't see each other at all despite the lone streetlight a mere twenty-five yards away.

Marci

Ansley Vaughan said...

Emily, it smelled dirty and dank, of petrol and pollution with a metallic overlay. It was in London that it was worse; I think it's because all the grime and dust of the city gets gaught up in it. That's why it was yellow as well. The old-fashioned pea-soupers smelled terrible, I can remember my parents telling me. And of course, in Dickens's day, you could add to it the foul odour from the Thames, but nowadays the river is pretty clean.