I knew it would be “interestin” getting into work this morning as last night’s snow had called for reinforcements and there were a good few inches of it covering the car and the street. I noted the results of my experiment to see whether newspaper kept your windscreen from freezing up (”not applicable in snowy situations as it turns to mushy crap”) hopped in the car and set off with 13 minutes to do the trip which on average takes about 14 but can vary from 10 to 25.

At the bottom of the street, I stopped for the gap in traffic, then let the clutch out and didn’t go anywhere. The ice must be worse than I thought. I popped it in reverse and backed up a little to get out of the icy patch. Then I had a bit of trouble finding 1st. Or 2nd. Or indeed any forward gear.

Or neutral.

I spent a moment stirring the gearstick in H shapes, small circles, figure-8s, and finally in large sweeping circles that took up most of the interior space of the car, and eventually conceded that the car had chosen reverse and was happy with it.

So I carefully retraced my steps by reversing all the way back up the hill to my house, parked up, stuck post-its on the steering wheel and gear stick (cos I’m bound to forget and reverse straight into my neighbor) kitted up and rode in on my bicycle.

Which was certainly “interestin”.