In reply to Rich's post as you know last year was first time but had no trouble getting out at all then.
Think this year it was down to a combination of the long period of rain and a bad accident on the M1 that saw that closed for a while. Just everyone decided to leave at the same time.
Took me an hour and a half to get out. Took Karen about 4 hours!
But we did meet up at our friends in Milton Keynes so that worked out fine in the end.