Car tumbles

On my way back from grocery shopping this morning, looking towards home across the water

Ice on the steep hill down towards the loch yesterday morning made me realise that BlueCar, which I'd left at the bottom on Thursday when it started to snow quite heavily, would not make it up to the house with the grocery shopping I was planning to do. I arranged with Toad that he'd come down in Rusty Trusty 4x4 Rattletrap to pick me and the groceries up from the bottom when I got back.

On my return I found our neighbour filling his wheelbarrow from the grit bin (that also resides at the bottom of the hill–what we call 'DTH': down the hill) and gritting the steep slope spade by spade. It seems his partner had 'totalled' her car during the week by skidding on ice along the shore road. Apparently her car ended up on its roof. I'd noticed some police tape on the seaward side of the road on my way round the loch and hoped the accident hadn't been too bad. Like my car wrecking somersault over the sea wall and onto the beach at Cove seven years ago, it seems our neighbour wasn't hurt but her car was!

It was after LucyCar's somersault that we got the Rattletrap. Gosh! it looked quite smart back then! Baboons tore off the spare tyre cover on a trip to Knowsley Safari Park several years ago when I was visiting the DerbyshireDudes.

LucyCar after her tumble. First pic was in a local newspaper. Toad took the others later. Thank goodness for seat belts, airbags and a sturdy car 'box' I say! Me, another mum and two young cub scouts were not hurt and there was another car load of scouts behind us. We were on our way (I was a Cub leader at the time) to a Thinking Day service at Craigrownie Church. The scout leader and his teenage son stayed with the car till the police came and emptied the contents of the boot and glove compartment into a bag. The Beaver Scout leader took the rest of us to the church where I was happy to sit among friends in a warm place for an hour or so. The police came and talked to me afterwards.

Thinking Day, 22 February, was the joint birthday of the founders of the Scout and Guide movements. This is what Wiki says: On the day, Guides and Girl Scouts everywhere think of each other and of their commitment to international friendship and understanding. It is celebrated each year on 22 February, which was the birthday of both Robert Baden-Powell and his wife, the former World Chief Guide, Olave Baden-Powell.

That year, 2010, Peninsula Guides had been collecting old, often chipped mugs in which they then planted miniature daffodil bulbs which were flowering by 22 February. They gave one to every scout and guide in the church. It was a lovely token of hope on a day that left me rather shaken. 

It was three years before I would drive at all when there was ice on the ground. It was a skid on ice that landed us on the beach; I had turned into the skid but then saw a hefty stone wall in front of me and reacted! On our side on the beach was the result. Not too bad a result all things considered. It was kind of the tide to be out! Rattletrap can cope with ice but even now I'd rather Toad did the getting down the hill to gritted roads bit when our hill is like this (I've 'smallened' some of them to make them fit better in a clump; you can click on them to 'embiggen' them if you want):

Winters with conditions like this are not common here but we've had two out of eleven and there are always a few days, often in February or March, when the postman doesn't deliver stuff because of ice on the hill. The last few days have been such but I met him DTH yesterday and he handed me our post. At times I've pulled my Kahtoola Microspikes over my boots and gone down with a sledge for stuff that was being delivered. Toadlet and I sometimes needed them when walking to her primary school one mile along the shore road.