NOW that we have to ride a toboggan run just to post a letter, life is action-packed if slightly blurred. It was particularly thrilling last weekend when, halfway down the run, I realised the steering on the 4x4 had apparently frozen and that I could travel only as the crow flies – except on the ground, of course.
This would certainly have shortened any future journey I had in mind, but, in a few seconds, I had a sharp, blind bend to negotiate and the brakes seemed to be chewing one another up. Normally, that bend vanishes at almost a 90-degree angle, but, thanks to a large snowdrift, it had become more generous over the weeks, more casual, if not downright indistinct, so there was some room for error.
In fact, I sort of swayed round it with the 4x4 pitched at an angle I made up as I went along. Out the other end, I snaked over the snaking bridge and came to an abrupt but reasonably satisfying halt after skidding into the middle of the main road, which as luck would have it was empty. If I had been facing the right way, it would have been an ideal manoeuvre.
Just two months earlier, this road ran like a frothing river. At the bottom, it was so deep you could have swum in it. Now we were “live” at the Dumbo Winter Olympics. Who would have thought you could get so much free excitement from a quarter of a mile.
I could have just walked down to the post office, but there was a possibility I might not get back up: crampons have never featured in my wardrobe essentials.
The road up to the post office was a different sort of challenge. At this point, I imagine most people would have left their vehicle and walked the last few hundred yards, enjoying on their way the astonishing detail underfoot of the scale-model relief map of the Andes.
Something in me, however, pretends that none of this is happening and just carries on blithely as normal. This daftie takes over when the rest of me is too busy listening to the radio to bother. Eventually, I come to my senses and wonder why I’m up a creek without a paddle when I’m meant to be buying clementines in a supermarket.
Up ahead, there was an abandoned van stuck in the verge, which I didn’t pay much attention to because I wasn’t driving a blue transit van, I was in my trusty 4x4 toboggan. Unfortunately, the left side of the 4x4 slid into what seemed to be a ditch in the middle of the road and I was left staring at the blue van at a jaunty angle.
A large, roundish woman appeared from the post office, gave me a wave, climbed into the van and confidently drove off in a hail of icy spray.
“So that’s how’s it’s done,” I thought to myself. “First, buy a blue transit van, and then you’re laughing all the way to the post office.”
I decided the 4x4 was close enough to what I reckoned must have been the pavement, so I left it sulking and ventured forth with my mail slipping and sliding all the way. Then I stopped in my tracks as the daftie was replaced with a very strong image of me sitting in a crowded A&E waiting for an X-ray.
“Why bother?” I thought, “there’s probably no mail being collected or delivered. Get back in the 4x4 and go home and watch Bargain Hunt.”
Right on cue, out of the rising freezing fog, a post office van lurched into view.
“David Dickinson will have to wait,” I sighed.
Despite the lack of abandoned vehicles outside, the post office was stuffed with people who, on closer casual inspection, turned out to be only three normal-sized customers wearing masses of layered clothing that made them look enormous and turned their faces into tiny, pink, fleshy islands.
“I’ve got my man’s three best tweed jackets on and a jumper he got for Christmas,” announced one woman.
“And here’s me thinking you had been overdoing the mincemeat pies,” replied a huge, puffed-up elderly bloke.
As usual, one of the postie cats had taken up residence in front of the heater, preventing anyone from getting within frying distance. Not that anyone needed it in their multi-layered fat suits.
The door blew open and an elderly woman bustled in, wider than she was high.
She had no time for all this fuss about snow; it was a load of nonsense, and anyone who said it wasn’t would have to answer to her.
“I lived through the war, you know,” she declared, not really looking at anyone in particular, “and the snow never bothered us one bit.”
There was a short silence while this statement was inhaled by everyone present.
Suddenly, Amy, the young part-time sales assistant, took a break from her VAT upgrade and popped out from behind a display
“Did it snow during the war?” she asked earnestly.
There was another silence, during which the over-clothed immobilised customers tried to twist their tiny heads round so they could screw their little faces up at one another.
“It’s funny, you never see it snowing in any of the war films,” said a disembodied voice from the interior of the shop.
“Heroes of Telemark,” announced one of the elderly gents, before promptly stepping back on to the cat.
“Sound of Music,” chimed in one of the old women, “there’s plunty of sna in the Sound of Music.”
This was greeted with loud approval.
“I love that film,” agreed another older woman. “Julie Andrews and her kids being chased by Nazis all over Australia – jist great,” she sighed.
“That must have been a right pest,” piped up Amy the sales assistant.
“Fit, bein chased by Nazeez?” asked one of the old gents.
“No, snowing durin’ the war,” replied Amy flatly.
“Who needs Bargain Hunt?” I said, laughing.
Suddenly, everyone looked at their watches and in about three seconds the shop had emptied.