Until this recent episode, I don't think most people appreciated how much freight traffic there is between UK and Continent. In the 90's, when I was running to Austria and back every week, the French fishermen/farmers kept blockading Calais. On one occasion they did this at midnight and luckily the firm I worked for phoned me to tell me, so I diverted up to Zeebrugge to get the Dover ferry from there. Normally there are only 3 sailings a day on that route( although now I believe it has been stopped altogether), but fair play to P&O, they put all the Calais ferries on the route too for trucks only. I hit the back of the Zeebrugge queue at 0945 (9 hrs after the blockade started) 5 miles outside Zeebrugge! Luckily, I had my wife with me (who also drives), so one of us was always ready to drive up the queue. We passed several trucks whose drivers were asleep! Long and short is, we got a ferry 0330 the next morning. Bear in mind the conditions...Ok, we had food and drink, but no facilities (pooing on a bit of newspaper in the trailer is no fun, trust me!) and no one came by with supplies. I feel really sorry for all the guys and girls stuck in Dover. Spare them a thought when you tuck in to your lunch tomorrow...which they won't get, but probably brought some of to you. Merry Christmas.