OK, so yesterday, the Wii did arrive, early on, at 9.30am. Before I would normally have set out for the office, so I plugged it in and had a brief play. Got it working with no probs at all, created a few Miis, various things like that. Bowled a 166.

Then, just after 1.45pm, set out for work.

Not having heard a weather forecast.

The Wii weather channel had only mentioned cold and rain. Nothing about wind. I had noticed, clearly, that it was quite a windy day – noise and buffeting all around, and when Fudge went out for a walk he came back in looking extremely fluffy.

So, I set out, and got onto the motorway with no difficulty. Past Junction 27. At Junction 28, there’s a queue ahead. I drove past the mouth of the exit into the queue at 2.15pm. I know this, because the Archers had just finished. I didn’t want to start listening to the Afternoon Play, because I thought I’d be at work long before it finished. I took advantage of the stationary traffic to change the CD.

But by the time I’d listened to the entire CD, forty minutes later, I’d barely moved. That’s when I started texting people, and got a response like “Driving? Today? on the motorway? Are you mad? There are 70-100mph winds!”

So I figured out how to turn on the traffic-alert function on my radio, and got various different traffic reports from Radio Nottingham, Radio Sheffield and Radio Derby. Pieced together that a high-sided vehicle had blown over between J29 and J30, and the motorway was closed northbound. I was stuck in a 7-mile tailback.

At 2.15, I’d just passed the exit. By 3pm, I’d only just passed the corresponding entrance for the same junction. At 3.15, we edged into a much more open part of the road, and the lorry ahead of me was having difficulty staying on the road. Right in front of me, I could see it getting hit by the wind. Its passenger-side wheels left the road three or four times. The worst time, they were about a foot off the road. I was wondering if it would help if I drove onto the hard shoulder to shelter him a bit, when he decided to “overtake” the car transporter ahead of him and use that as shelter.

When I’d left home, I’d decided to leave eating until I got to Chesterfield. By the time 4pm rolled around, we’d made it to within spitting distance of the Tibshelf services, so I scooted along the hard-shoulder for a bit and pulled in. The services were as congested as the highway, and it was difficult to circulate within. I parked up and went and had a meal (nearly a tenner for a gourmet pork pie and a salad). It was round about then that the traffic radio started reporting that the police advice was for high-sided vehicles, caravans and motorbikes to get off the road as soon as they could.

Getting out of the services wasn’t too easy, but the staff told me the only way of turning round was to continue to J29. There was a private, staff way out of Tibshelf, but I wasn’t allowed to use it.

So, back onto the road about 4.30pm, with about 2 miles of clogged up motorway until J29, the Chesterfield turn. The traffic news still came on every few minutes, and I got treated to a few bits of utterly banal banter between various local radio hosts in the north Notts / Derbys / Yorks area. And some snippets of other scary news: people killed, Nottingham city centre gridlocked, the trams unable to run south of the Forest, etc.

Just after 5.15, Leigh phoned to talk Wii, and just after then, I passed the 1 mile to J29 sign. It was nice to have someone to talk to for a bit!

Finally at 5.59, I got off at J29. By then, the motorway was partially reopened heading northwards, and the police were deciding who could proceed and who not. The radio was warning that the road from the junction into Chesterfield was almost as bad as the motorway with a 3 mile queue. I already knew there were roadworks – they’re replacing the safety barriers. So I just went all the way around the junction and headed home.

It had taken four hours to drive what normally takes seven minutes. I reset my car metrics at one point, and they told me I’d averaged 3mph and about 9mpg. I probably used up £8 in petrol just idling, but every time I stopped my engine, the queue moved!

Still, at least I was in the the warm and comfort of my own car with Radio 4 and my CD collection for company. And, as Rob F says of his own travel horror story, it’s hard to be too peeved when you know that 11 people died in the storm.

But if I’d only checked the travel advice before leaving the house, I could have had a full day Wiiing!