Thawing Out

After over a fortnight of freezing temperatures and serial snow storms, the weather at Chez Szondy has finally turned to something other than the sort that makes me want to say "I am just going outside and may be some time" every time I leave the room.

It's been a hell of a time, with the Cruiser's cooling system blown out and stranded at the dealer's in Monroe, the Hunmobile (AKA the Volkswagen Jetta) marooned a mile and a half away unable to get up the mountain, both the satellite antennae buried under mounds of snow, intermittent power outages, and my brilliant plan for stocking up against bad weather going pear shaped because with everyone trapped at home during a mini ice age the stock of firewood that I thought would last until March is now almost exhausted and the wine supply so alarmingly low that I was trying to figure out how to make snow shoes out of a pair of old squash rackets.

The thaw came a couple of days ago, though it didn't help much, as we hadn't any motor transport and there's a hundred feet of unploughed road between us and the main road anyway. Fortunately, the wife was able to borrow her father's four-wheel drive truck yesterday. Unfortunately, she managed to get it stuck this morning at an angle right outside our drive in a bank of snow and a ditch that required myself, the neighbour, two shovels, a cup of tea, and a lot of slaloming and cursing to get it out again. Also, fortunately, the main road was finally clear enough to retrieve the Hunmobile with a minimum of towing, but unfortunately, our decision that we really need a second car that is more suitable to the country means that we had to change our minds about scrapping the Cruiser in favour of getting it fixed so we'd have something to trade in later.

The lessons learned from all this: Invest in more wood, general supplies, a generator, and a lot more booze; get the wife on video stating that in the future she will believe me when I say we're definitely snowed in and thus avoid anymore death-or-glory breakout attempts; teach the dogs to tow a sled while carrying a note down to the off licence in the event of a real emergency; and remember the next time that the cruiser seems ready to conk out to drive it off a cliff so we can get the insurance to declare it a write off.

Now I suppose I should go into town, look for survivors, and see if civilisation can be rebuilt.