Well I guess it is winter....but I wasn't expecting this!
I had been given Monday off work to go up to Dunedin and attend a University tour with my younger sister who had just arrive from the U.S. I decided to go up on Friday, make it a long weekend and spend the time with my aunt, uncle and cousin in town and head back to Invercargill on Monday night.
However when I woke up Sunday morning it had started to snow. Hard. And there were no signs of it slowing up. When Monday rolled around there was no way we were getting out of the driveway and down the hill as an inch of snow covered the grounds and the city just wasn't equipped to get rid of it. Besides, even if we did get down the drive we still couldn't get back to Invercargill as both the highways were closed due to black ice. I wasn't sure I was going to make it back in time for work at 9am on Tuesday and made sure my boss knew what was happening. He completely understood and, half-jokingly, told me they had been prepared for me to miss work 5 weeks earlier due to the Chilean ash cloud so he was sure they could make arrangements now for snow.
By 4pm Monday however the roads were reopened, the snow and started to melt and we were able to get back on the road to head 3 hours South to Invercargill. The drive took a little longer than usual as we wound carefully through the New Zealand countryside, but we did make it back before Tuesday morning.
When I got into work on Tuesday the office was veryyy quiet. Two coworkers were stuck a few hours away because of snow and six others were out for other events (conferences, client meetings etc.) Of the 21 people in the office not very many made it to work and morning tea was a very quiet affair. Nearly everyone, however, was back by Wednesday and the office resumed its busy, bubbly lifestyle again. It is funny to think though that we were almost at a standstill and unable to work because of a 1/4 inch of snow.