PERSONAL ACCOUNT:ON CHRISTMAS Eve the roads were so dangerous that we decided to walk the four miles to the local shop, writes EILEEN BATTERSBY
We had to, as my station wagon had slid into a ditch the previous night. A man in a four-wheel-drive gave us a lift. Delighting in the dangerous conditions, he said, “No one is out, this is a test of driving.” Several hours earlier, on the road below the hill we live on, another four-wheel-drive had crawled by and the driver offered a lift to the big supermarket. He was bringing three other neighbours, all car-breakdown victims. It was tempting; the supermarket is nine miles away. But I had only ventured down the glass-like hill surface on reconnaissance, walking along the ditch, to check the road. My house wasn’t even locked. “You won’t get down the road otherwise,” he warned, “there’s abandoned cars all over the place. It’s an ice-rink.”
On Christmas morning, all of the high-tech, insulated drinkers in the stables had frozen. I spent hours carrying buckets of hot water down from the kitchen. Horses empty a bucket the way we would a glass. Slipping and sliding and falling, I cursed the ice. Then, on cue, the electricity went. We had cooked our turkey on Christmas Eve and our gathering had eaten all our food. I was intent on walking 10 miles to friends who had invited us for Christmas dinner. I had the cranberry sauce, but by mid-afternoon, my daughter had slipped so often she refused to leave the house. We had banana sandwiches and, crisis of crisis, the chocolate was gone.
Ice is a sinister enemy. It is invisible. For three days, the horses stayed in. Shovelling shavings from the stables, I made a path for them to cross the frozen yard and stretch their legs in fields so cold they quickly wanted back in.
We thought it had thawed. The road looked wet. Off we went, on foot. I stomped in a puddle and ended up on my back. We began the long trek to the supermarket, the one with the specialist dog and cat food. The road was so slippery; the few cars were hazards to each other. We walked along the tow path and met an elderly man who wanted to know where we were going. He listened as I told him we were on a mission to fetch gourmet cat food for Nala, whose needs are more complex than our other cats.
At the end of the tow path, a woman called to us from the ditch across the road. Explaining that her husband had phoned her, she offered me turkey “for the fussy cat”. As she spoke, a car eased into sight, two men asked were we stranded. On hearing the saga of the cat, they drove us, on a deserted, ice-bound road, all the way to the supermarket, telling us about the numbers filling A&E departments, the crashed cars, the frozen pipes. They had been stranded at a friend’s house for two days. “But then,” said one of them, “you have to try to make a break for home.”
It was the year of Sea the Stars; it was the year of the death of John Updike; it was the year of the floods; and as a finale, it was the year of the vicious ice that held Christmas hostage.
Yesterday it was different; it was better, possible to walk with your hands in your pockets without negotiating each step like a tightrope walker. Overnight snow had created the ideal postcard effect. Trees laced in white; only the birds were out.
That wonderful, satisfying crunch of snow under foot had replaced the evil slither of ice. New Year's Day spelt survival as the Blue Danube, followed by the Radetzky March, played on Lyric FM in the stables. The sun was so bright, reflecting off the snow, it must have delivered the countryside the way city people imagine it – peaceful, romantic, stress-free. On New Year's Eve night, the night after a freak wind had ripped the roof off a stable block, the full moon was as bright as day. What a difference.