Friday 22 January 2021
We aren’t used to cold weather, but for that matter we aren’t used to warm weather either, however the latter doesn’t matter for this story. What I mean by cold weather is snow and frost. When I was young frost was frost, it was just there. But with age you realise the idiosyncrasies of frost. The frost can fall in the early evening, you expect the next morning to be terrible, but it lifts during the night, and you awake to nothing but great relief. Or it freezes all night, then the next morning you get exactly what you were expecting, but, and this is important, you can see it, the whiteness and the sparkle. The worst frost is one that comes quick and late. You can’t see it, the ground is a sheet of ice, a white sparkly road says watch yourself, so you do, a normal looking road covered in ice gives no warning.
On Friday morning there was a late frost, it was a bad one, I went to get the kids work from school, and the car park was a sheet of ice. The first I knew about it was when I pulled in to park, I put my foot on the brake, as you do, but the nose of the car slid on, it only slid a few inches, I was going slow, nothing dangerous, a wee warning. So I crossed the road and walked on the grass. The tarmac in the school is old and rough, flat but not smooth, perfect for walking on, dreadful for tyres, but the kids don’t drive cars in the school grounds, so it’s perfect. I must explain to you dear reader about the car park, the orientation is important for the story. Looking up from the bottom, where the school is, the road is in the shape of a lowercase ‘b’, from the top looking down, it is in the shape of a lowercase ‘q’, there are parking spaces in the centre and along the curved bit, and there are houses on the straight line. Looking from the bottom, where the curve joins the line, there is a pretty steep ascent all the way to the top.
A car was stuck right at the bottom, the odd rev, wheels spinning, getting nowhere, just glad it isn’t me. I crossed the road to try and help but could hardly get across. Someone literally had to give me a hand so I would not fall going the last bit. Once they headed on I needed to get back across the road, I had to forget about helping anyone else, I didn’t want to fall on my backside, which was a genuine possibility. A bookie would have given better odds for me falling that staying on my feet. It was so bad I thought of sitting down and trying to slide across the road using my hands, but I didn’t, firstly because of pride, and secondly because I would slowly, and in the sight of many people, with one wrong move slide to the bottom of the car park. Now I’d be way further from my car and still no help to the other person. Someone would have to rescue both of us.
Then I saw it, bright yellow and large, a grit box, it was below me, across the road and down the steep hill. I needed to go back onto the foot path and then down, down is not good, you’re travelling with gravity. Helpfully beside the footpath was a fence, you could hold on if needs be, and if disaster struck and I fell I could grab the grit box as I slid by! Okay, fortune favours the brave, forward march, forward shuffle more like. I made it, with great difficulty, the last time I did this, not the sliding about on the ice, the picking up the school work, it only took about two minutes, three kids were sitting in the car, waiting for Daddy-O. All I could think was please don’t get out, their listening to an audio book, their happy, they don’t want me to come back quickly, they’ll stay where they're at, please don’t get out.
Into the
grit box, big handful of grit, I cross the road by throwing grit on the ground
and then stepping on the gritted bit. Safely
at the car, I opened the boot and got a big strong plastic bag out, trunk if
your American, I don’t know why I added that, and walked the narrow gritted way
to the grit box and filled the bag. Then
I started gritting the road down the hill towards the stuck car, then I made my
way up the hill, all the time walking where I’d gritted. At the top of the hill was another grit box, so
I filled the bag and went to help other cars.
Now it’s really important to point out that other people were doing this
too, I just happened to have a bag, but I was being out done by someone with a
bucket, which was good because we are all doing the same thing. With the full bag I headed down the curve of
the ‘b’ or ‘q’, whatever one you want, ‘q’ sounds better all James Bond and that. Back to the car, up the hill, low gear, keep
traction, don’t stop.
So I gritted most of the car park, why did I do it, why tell the story? Well it was to help other people, but I did more than I’d intended, or I needed to do to help myself. The real reason I did, and this isn’t very magnanimous, is because I did it. I did it because I started doing, then the natural and obvious action was to keep doing it, the unnatural action was to stop doing it. When there’s something you need to do, doing something to do it is the best thing to do to get it done.
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