Depending on the traffic, my daily commute to work usually takes in the region of 15-20 minutes to get there. Annoyingly, despite using exactly the same route in reverse coming home, it takes 20-25 minutes. I presume this is because I start at 8am rather than 9am (it seems more than half of the businesses here open an hour after we start), whereas almost everywhere around here finishes at 5pm.
The journey is just short of nine miles.
Last night was an absolute nightmare, though. The local motorway had a major accident on it, which closed it entirely for more than five hours. It's a major artery in region. As a result, the congestion was… *horrific*. My 20-25 minute drive home turned into one hour and 31 minutes… More than three times as long. I probably could have walked five out of those nine miles quicker. I think I managed to get into second gear twice… It brought my town and neighbouring city effectively a standstill. I can only think of one other occasion (similar event) where it took me about another ten minutes on top of that.
My last job, where I was at for nine years, was barely two miles away from where I lived (I've moved since then). I was very lucky in that respect. All I had to do was turn right out of our Cul-De-Sac, then left at the end of that road onto the main road and then follow that for about a mile and a half. Turn left just over the roundabout and I was there… I could do it in seven minutes one way and the slightly longer way around (when traffic was heavy) took about eleven minutes from memory. I even walked there and back on at least two occasions. Sadly, I was made redundant. I'd already escaped three previous 'rounds' of redundancies over the eighteen months or so leading up to it - so I suppose my luck ran out. A shame really. Not only was it very conveniently located, we also used to finish early on Fridays. I probably miss the latter more than anything...
