Winter Wonderland!

Being pregnant has it's benefits, granted: such as waking up at 10.30am, rolling languidly over and spotting a pack of chocolate digestive biscuits, much the way a lioness will spot an unawares little bokkie in the distance - and going in for the kill, not an eyebrow is raised because it is 'natural'. (Craig did laugh a little incredulously, though, at the apparently serious look of intent as I shimmied free another biscuit from the pack!) Three chocolate McVities later, and a smallish bowl of fruit salad, it's time to begin the day with some painfully ached-for writing!

With Christmas round the corner, I feel I should write about how it feels to be a Soutie away from that Christmas braai, lazy afternoon swim and your precious family - but there's so much else that's happened while I've been 'away' working, that I simply have to keep you fully up to date!

The first thing relates to (please don't yawn - I promise it's exciting!) The Weather, while the second is about Putting In Petrol.

Our dear little Fiat Punto, in it's faded red, somewhat dinged glory, remains a faithful car in most weather conditions, though it's given us a little bit of grief these last few weeks when the temperatures have plummeted to the Minus Zone. In a desperate rush one morning on our way to work, BOTH our doors were frozen shut!! No amount of jostling or jiggling could budge the door apart from it's icy clasp! Beginning to feel the ice eating through the soles of my little leather pumps (ignorantly minus stockings or pantihose) I couldn't keep the whine out of my voice as I told Craig to try the boot! It popped open without a fuss, and Craig climbed through the back, kicking the doors open like a madman - reminding me simultaneously of a Rescue 911 hero and a giant trapped spider, all legs, arms and elbows in his smart, dark suit! Needless to say, I made a determined detour on the way home that evening past Tesco to buy that marvellous, though toxic, British invention: de-icing spray. Quite cheap at under 2 quid for each item in the range, I opted for the more powerful looking aerosol can (sorry, Mr Ozone), imagining the bliss of aiming a powerful squirt between the car door and it's clinging frame - instead of having to witness the dramatics of Craig cursing and kicking again!

It seems as if the main roads and highways get salted/gritted much more efficiently than these quiet back roads that wend their serpentine way between villages - i.e. the roads we travel on between home, the village of Spratton where Craig's school is and Kettering - where my school is. Generally, by the time we're on the roads, there's been enough traffic for the ice to have been melted (tyre friction). BUT: the particular little-used byway that snakes off to the side of the main road through Spratton is a nasty little trap of higgeldy-piggeldy parked cars and ice in all it's frightening forms: from smooth, shiny black ice that pretends to be a puddle to the caked-up white frosting that is hideously perilous despite the fact that it looks so, so beguilingly pretty: like icing sugar on a chocolate cake. Craig safely deposited at Spratton Hall, Radio 1 pumping through tinny speakers, lipgloss reapplied after the goodbye kisses, I mentally prepared myself to get to school a) on time and b) in one piece. However, when this pretty cake-frosting decides to nail you, you forget everything you know you should do - like pump your brakes in and out etc etc etc etc etc...................... Driving a little absently round the corner, I spotted the warm glow of approaching headlights on the white, fluffy (NOT) duvet of the road - and, as I always do (such a conscientious South African driver!) I begin to slow down so I can pull behind the car parked not so much on the side of the road, as almost in middle of it! HOWEVER. It doesn't go AT ALL to plan, and the pretty white frosting carries me like a skater on ice faaaaar too close to this badly parked car than I'd have liked. The Fiat's unsure bum does a tango across the ice, ignoring the fact that my foot is on the brake and my heart is pleadingly pumping out a hundred prayers for mercy! Thankfully, I glide to an ungraceful stop a metre or so from the backside of said badly parked car - and the oncoming car flashes their lights compassionately at me - that they will wait for me! (Fact: English drivers are generally a fantastically polite and sensible bunch - excluding 90% of lorry drivers and the young yobs in their souped up little jalopies.)

When I lived in West Berkshire and Hampshire, the winters were noticeably much more mild than the weather we've experienced up here in the East Midlands. Even the wind patterns are different up here - it is wild and obstreperous, beating the trees and moaning like a ravenous wolf (yip - been spending too much time teaching the kids personification and metaphors at school maybe?!) But the biggest surprise was driving past the always beautiful, open expanse of Pitsford the other morning, where the rolling farms and bristling hedges shimmered the purest, softest white (taking my breath away) - and the lake was almost entirely frozen over. A comparison escapes me - it is only something I've seen in the movies, or imagined what a true Northern Hemisphere winter must be like. But where the fragile sheets of ice lay flat and matte upon the waters, time seemed to stand still. Rippling and glossy water broke the heavy hush of the ice in large, liquid fingers - as though it were playing with it, trying to dismantle it, piece by tenuous piece. A winter jigsaw puzzle. (I could never forget this.)

Phew. Lastly - on a more amusing note, I'd like to begin a mini-discussion about our South African Culture of Petrol Attendants & Grocery Packers. Whenever I pack my groceries, it is sure to slip out that in South Africa, we have 'people' to do it for us as 'it creates employment'. The response? A look of 'you lazy white, racist South African' expelled in varying degrees of malice, from the most mild glint in the English eye to the bulging shock of horror! Maybe I should have already learned my lesson by now - and should keep it to myself? But a wicked little part of me enjoys the reaction - because, I think, it reminds me that I could never really NOT be a South African; that the talking about home as often as it slips out is what keeps me connected, there. The same can be said for our lack of experience in putting in petrol. Before I venture into this little story, please leave your own stories in the COMMENTS section below -- and hopefully it won't be another long week before I can tell you my story.