The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1223 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

As befits the alpha male with a tummy full of turkey and claret, Simon dozed on the sofa in the dining room while people chattered at the table. I made up a selection of cooked meats and salad with fresh bread rolls, still warm from the oven for Christmas tea. It was mainly the children who ate it, the adults were still digesting their dinners.

I did get to see Matt Smith dealing with flying sharks and Katherine Jenkins singing in the Dr Who Christmas Carol, which was very good–wasn’t a dry eye in the house–except Si and he was still asleep.

Henry and Monica phoned–they had been due to come but decided the weather was too bad for the drive. He has a Landrover but decided he didn’t fancy a two hour drive in it and Monica certainly didn’t.

Maureen also cried off–apparently the snow came in to her roof and she had some building work to organise to deal with it. She was still working on her flashings on Christmas Day. I did offer to save her a dinner but she had a friend there who was cooking a meal for them.

At nine o’clock, things started to wind down and I suggested taking Leon and his mother home. I discovered that by squeezing the children together, I could also get Pippa and her boys into the Cayenne and thus save Gareth a trip.

It was freezing hard and I had to defrost the windscreen before we could go anywhere, then of course it misted up inside.

“Dis is a snazzy mota, Lady C,” opined Leon as we sat waiting for the blower to clear the screen–it took no more than a minute.

“It is a lovely car, Leon, and hopefully the four wheel drive will get us all where we need to go and me back home.”

“I’m sure dat will happen,” said his mum who had the joy of sharing the front of the car with me.

I set off down the drive, in four wheel drive and she crunched and slipped her way down to the roadway. Here ruts were clear on either side of the road and once in them she sailed along perfectly well. I naturally kept the speed down and we got to Leon’s house in half an hour–about the same time it would take in the rush hour.

Pippa came in the front once we’d helped Leon and his mum into their house and declined the offer of a cuppa. I set off towards Pippa’s house and we were doing fine until she suggested a shortcut. I remember ages ago someone telling me the difference between a 4x4 and an ordinary car in snow and ice–the 4x4 gets stuck further up the road.

The car went sideways and stopped at the edge of the kerb. It was unable to move despite my efforts, the wheels spinning and just compacting more snow down into ice.

I jumped out and went to the back of the car–I’d forgotten the folding shovel–damn. There was no way I was going to call Simon or Tom out and Gareth was probably up to his armpits in Stella by now.

“We can walk from here, Cathy. Thanks for a lovely afternoon and evening.”

“You don’t perchance have a shovel I could borrow?”

“Oh, I don’t know–there’s a spade in the shed, I think.”

“Mind if I borrow it?”

“No, of course not.”

We set off on foot after I locked the car and cussed it. It took ten minutes to get to Pippa’s and one of the boys went down the garden to the shed to fetch the spade. He came back a few minutes later and I walked back to the car carrying it and an old cardboard box I was going to open out and drive the car over, once I’d cleared the ice from under the wheels.

Of course when I got back, the car had sunk into the ice about four inches–the wheels had presumably got warm spinning round, although I thought the traction control should have sorted it.

I spent about twenty minutes hacking snow out from around and under the wheels and clearing a path to the centre of the road–by which time my back was aching and I felt as hot as my temper. So much for four wheeled bloody drive.

I threw the spade into the back of the car and sat in it and rested my aching back for a moment, then started her up, cleared the misting from the screen–my hot breaths–and put her into second gear as recommended for snow and ice. The wheels spun some more and the first spots of despair began to drip off my sweaty brow.

I dug some more and shoved the cardboard under one of the front wheels. I’d left the engine running–sod the environment–got back in and gently accelerated in second watching bits of cardboard confetti fly all over the road. The car moved not one inch.

Oh well, I told myself, it would probably have been worse in the Mercedes and I couldn’t have pushed it any easier than this one. However, for forty five grand, you’d think they’d have included the option of vertical take-off and landing, the jets melting the snow as they fired up. Sadly they don’t, Vorsprung durk bollocks or whatever those stupid adverts used to say. I wasn’t yet at screaming or crying pitch, but it was getting closer, along with exhaustion.

I got out and dug some more–any deeper and there was a danger it would look like something out of the trenches from the First World War. If it had been a bike, I could have walked the bloody thing home.

Now there was nothing between me and the tarmac–well between the tyres and the black stuff, but I’m sure you took my meaning. Once more I put the spade inside the car–this time in the foot-well of the front passenger seat. I ignored the flashing light of the seatbelt alarm and gave it some welly. The car lurched forward then sideways and stopped again.

I was ready to scream and did. I felt no better and now my throat hurt. I decided to surrender and call up the cavalry. I put my hand in my bag and–no phone–oh shit–I don’t believe it. I punched the passenger seat and told it it was dumkopf of a car.

I was now blocking the lane as well, the car being forty five degrees to the pavement. Oh well, if it wouldn’t go forwards, perhaps it would go backwards and at least straighten up–then, I’d have to swallow my pride and walk home–about an hour if I was lucky–but with the ice and snow, probably half as long again.

I wondered if the blue light could melt snow, then laughed at my own idiocy. I shoved her in reverse and let out the clutch–Pepper went slowly backwards and I kept going, she eased out into the middle of the lane and I kept going. Fifty yards later I reached the road proper and eased out backwards and then gently forwards–I was finally moving towards home.

The sense of relief was almost physical–sweat was running down my back and I hate to think how much adrenalin I’d used up–probably month’s worths. I kept trundling along and out onto the main road where I think I did twenty miles an hour all the way home. I was absolutely cream-crackered when I got home.

“Ah, you decided to come home, have a nice time with Pippa?” said Simon and it was all I could do not to punch his lights out–instead I burst into tears.