28.12.09

My last day before returning to work.

The three men in my life have another week off.

One of our favourite places is the Yorkshire Dales and as the weather was nice again,
we opted for a walk.

Himself sorted out the cars, putting the Landrover in the garage

...erm... I queried - are we going in the car?

'Yes' himself brightly replied - I've washed the landie, want to keep it clean.

ok........

We set off, getting nearer the Dales, nearer thick snow.
Little thoughts in my head kept mentioning - landie, landie, landie.

'It'll be fine' himself replied
unlike me, he is a confident driver on ice and snow.

By now we were driving on a narrow barely two-width car lane
that had been made even narrower to a one lane track by frozen hard snow.

'Nearly there' himself said (was that for my benefit or his?)

Icy tracts mixed with sludgy muck were strewn across the lane now no wider than a sheep track.

I concentrated hard on my crochet - so not to appear worried.

We eventually got to the top of the hill,
the views were good (I have to concede to that)
but my eyes were either glued to my yarn (YO hook, through stitch, BLO, YO hook ...)
or straight forward at the lane now looking remarkably like an icy chasm at which we were at the bottom
(no - don't look - count your stitches!!)

'Ah\ himself breathed, 'we will just park - over there'


Where? I asked,

'There, by those big vans, plenty of room'


The vans in question were parked directly on a farm track as they could not get off,
but did that worry himself? - oh no......

He threw the car around the first van, using it as a form of catapult and launched us onto the farm track at some speed. **
Crunch, clatter, scrunch, crunch

'See' himself said cheerfully 'no problem'


In the back the boys managed to make themselves heard over the awful crunching sounds to ask. 
'Daddy what is that noise??'


'Oh, it's only the ice on the road under the engine' himself replied knowledgeably.

'Ah, we'll park here' he said as he threw the car onto the snowy edge of the farm track.

Bearing in mind that :
A - the rather large vans had not managed it,  and
B - we were being watched by the equally large van drivers,
C - the small estate car was manically lurching across the icy tracts of untamed frozen snow with me now gripping on to my crochet hook so tightly it gave me white knuckles and the boys were in the back shrieking and chortling with the whole naughtieness of it all!

Thud - we stopped.

Out leaps himself 'I'll just put the snow chains on'

The boys and giddy dog got out to play,

I got my camera out, still very conscious that we are being watched open-mouthed by the large group of large van drivers, now finding our escapades more interesting than theirs.

Several times himself lashed the snow chains onto the car, whilst boys and I helpfully kicked icy clods of frozen snow aside.
(I say that carefully as I don't think himself thought we were that helpful)

We got cold,
Himself got covered in oily road muck from the wheels,
Bless him - all through this he did remain remarkably cheerful.
Although I do suspect I heard a grinding of teeth when the snow chains fell off yet again.....

Finally, he managed to get the car off the frozen wedge that it had been teetering on and drove back up the lane, only to turn around and reverse back down............
He was a man determined,
like no man I know
he was going to park there
and he was going for his walk!

Crunch, clatter, scrunch, crunch

'I'll park here' he said as he leaped triumphantly out of the car, ready for his walk.

As we booted up, the large van drivers got out shovels and started to dig their vans out.......... avoiding eye contact with this strange little family and their now parked car.

We went for our walk.

**No vans or cars (or pride) was hurt in the making of this walk.

Thankyou

PS: a bit later, himself was heard to say 'hmmm maybe I should have brought the landrover'

but shhhhhh I won't tell if you don't x