Going snowwhere

Yesterday morning, like much of the country, I got up to find a blanket of snow outside, and very pretty it was too. And it was the real stuff, the right kind of snow, for snowballing, slip sliding and toboganning. Schools were closed. People couldn't get to work, but, I didn't have to because I don't start until next Monday.

Then Suzie asks if I'll take her to work because she isn't confident of driving in bad conditions. Of course I will (if only more people would recognise their driving abilities then there would be fewer accidents for us others to risk getting involved in). So I do (take her to work, that is). The problem is I can't get back home as the road off which "Our Close" is, well, it's like a skating rink (and covered in kids off school) and the Merc is fitted with traction control that doesn't, doesn't CONTROL! Instead it just cuts all power to the back wheels whenever they start to slip - and I CAN'T SWITCH IT OFF!!!! To make matters worse, when the forward motion stops the car slides back and the Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS) won't apply the brakes so I CAN'T STOP MY BACKWARDS PROGRESS EITHER!!!! Me & my car, we're going snowwhere.

Just to rub salt into the wounds, John at #10 has an old Fiat Punto ( a supposedly inferior car) and he has absolutely no troubles at all getting his car onto his drive, while mine is parked up by the shops a few hundred yards away on the side of the road, a road that is a bus route and is therefore gritted by the City Council.

My mind is made up. That damned car has got to go. I'm going to get me a simpler car, one without Traction Control, ABS, Electronic Stability Program (ESP) or anything else of that nature. Even if I have to get a ten year old car! Me and my car, we're going snowwhere!