Strike One.
I left work in the middle of the afternoon to be home in time to take some calls because I wanted to go out that evening and did not want to be stuck in the snow-bound traffic in rush hour. Quite a bit of snow had fallen and the roads were not at their best. It was also very cold, around -10 deg C, with a bitter wind blowing. I was driving along the stretch of road you see in this picture on the right. At that time both shoulders of the road were completely covered with snow which was encroaching on to the tarmac, and there was a metre wide strip of slushy snow down the centre of the road. There was also blowing snow that had drifted on to the road in places. I suppose I was in a bit of a dwaal and my right side wheels got into the snow on that side.
I won't bore you with the details of how I slipped and slid all over the icy road but I ended up staring close-up at the bush in the photo on the left. (If you click on the bush you will get the idea.) The tyre tracks show you precisely where my car came to a rest. Fortunately I had my recently-acquired-for-my-birthday used Blackberry with me and phoned the Canadian AA to come haul me out.
While I was sitting there staring back at the road, pondering my fate and feeling suitably sorry for myself, another north-bound car started to do the identical waltz all over the road, in front of my eyes, but this time there was a family in an SUV coming the other way. There was no way either car could avoid a collision. I got out to check and, miraculously, there were no serious injuries although the mother and teenage daughter were in shock. I called 911 and went back to my car to wait for the CAA. Forty minutes, 3 police cars, a fire-engine, 2 ambulances and 3 emergency tow trucks later (no lies,) not to mention traffic backed up out of sight in both directions, my own little ol' CAA emergency tow arrived and the kindly young operator pulled me back on to the road only to put a dagger through my heart. I had blissfully presumed that the only damage was to my front bumper - the stop against the bushes had been oh so gentle. The tree had thrust a spear-like branch through my front grill and right through my radiator where it had broken off and lodged like a poisonous dart. Aaargh!
Strike Two.
When I was finally brought home by the courtesy driver of Newmarket Toyota where my car had been towed to, Ingrid was talking on the phone to Stephen (doing engineering at Queen's University in Kingston, ON.) After giving him a couple of warnings and being repaired once or twice, his computer had finally and completely given up the ghost on that day.
Strike Three...
Judith went ice-skating that evening at an out-door rink in the nearby town of Aurora. When I arrived back from the meeting I had gone to, Ingrid had just come off the phone with her. While she had been skating with her boyfriend someone had stolen her bag with her nice new boots which were fitted with her orthotic inner soles. Altogether these cost a lot of money. But the worst of all was that the bag, in itself of very little value, was the one she had brought from Houghton Primary School when she came to Canada at the age of 10 years. This makes it pricelessly irreplaceable for Judith who was very distraught at the time.
...and Out
Today (Sunday) I went and took some photos of the area where I went off the road. I noticed two things: 1) The entire east-side shoulder of 2nd Concession had been very well snow-ploughed; 2) There were other tyre marks than mine indicating that others had also gone off the road close to where I had. I have put all the photos together in an album which you can get to from Site of Accident 7 Feb under Links.
Google have changed a few things with their blogging and brought a Beta version into production. In spite of saying that nothing would change on my blog, my new pictures are no longer enlarging in 2 stages and I have lost my list of (family) members. It may take us a little while to get that sorted out. Have a good week!
The following explanation of dwaal is offered by the official Johannesburg web site:
Dwaal (pronounced dwarl) - Used to indicate a lack of concentration or focus. Say a friend is talking to you but your mind is elsewhere. When the friend finishes speaking and looks at you as if expecting an answer, your response would be: "Sorry, I was in a bit of a dwaal. Could you repeat that?" Alternatively a dwaal could mean you are lost and wandering around aimlessly. An example: "I couldn't remember how to get there, so I drove around in a dwaal for a while before I found the right turning." From Joburg.
