Well, we didn't get the promised snow; we got 'freezing rain' instead. Although this sounds like an oxymoron it does exactly what it says on the tin.
A sort of sheen of rain covers everything in ice. And I mean everything, even the walls are coated. The trees creak and rustle and sound quite spooky. They look lovely, as if little jewels are hanging all over them.
Yesterday morning, though, it didn't seem quite so beautiful. The roads were (and still are for the large part) sheet ice. Two buses and the gritting lorry were stuck outside school, where the carparks were closed so all the staff had to park at the roadside- causing further chaos.
But that wasn't the worst of yesterday morning... I took No2 to school because of the state of the footpaths, not factoring in that outside her school would be just as bad. I had to turn the car in the middle of the road; I put it into reverse and pulled back a tiny bit, I was just about to make the second part of the three point turn when, like a good driver, I checked my rear-view mirror.
I saw the blur of black coat at roughly the same time as I heard something hit the back of the car. I had the handbrake on and the engine off faster than I would have thought possible.
A boy had decided to run across the road and had slipped on the ice, straight under the back of my car. Which, thank God, wasn't moving. He leaped to his feet and I got to him as he was trying to run off, I think he thought I was going to shout at him. We were both shocked and he kept repeating 'It's ok, I fell, you didn't hit me' while I was trying to expalin that regardless of how it had happened I was worried about him and whether he was hurt. I was still shaking a couple of hours later.
At the end of the day nothing had changed, the paths and roads were still treacherous. Four staff from my school had accidents on the way in and no doubt there were more on the way home. I cannot understand why the roads are this bad when the cold is longstanding. I would rather they grit the roads and paths than collect my bins for a couple of weeks (though technically we pay for both of these services...). No wonder foreigners laugh at us in winter, but it also explains partly why we get so edgy when the cold hits.
Because we are supposed to cope on iced up roads, walk on glassy pavements and keep paying for the privilege.
