Describe a time when you got stuck in a traffic jam.

The one I remember best happened last year, on the day before a long public holiday, on the main road out of the city.

I was heading to the bus station to catch a coach to my hometown. I'd booked the ticket weeks earlier and left the office early, thinking I'd allowed plenty of time. What I hadn't reckoned with was that half the city had the same plan. About two kilometres from the station, the taxi simply stopped moving, with cars, buses and motorbikes packed together as far as I could see.

We sat there for well over an hour. At first I kept checking the map on my phone, watching the estimated arrival time creep closer and closer to my departure. The driver was remarkably calm — he switched off the engine, opened a flask of tea and told me it was like this every year. In the end I paid him, got out and walked the last stretch, pulling my suitcase along the pavement and through the gaps between the cars.

As for how I felt, it was mostly helplessness. There's something uniquely frustrating about being unable to do anything except wait. But once I started walking, my mood lifted, partly because I was finally moving and partly because dozens of other people were doing exactly the same thing, which was almost funny. I reached the coach with about four minutes to spare, and ever since then I've travelled a day earlier before any holiday.