The emergency drive

I am not sure my friends should read this one.

The snow was falling fast and thick, and although Max had only been parked for an hour or two, he was covered in thick snow and some ice. I thought of asking the kids who threw snowballs at me to clean the car, but I was afraid their enthusiasm might do some damage.

I brushed the snow off him, and scraped the ice. The road was untreated and thick with snow.

I reversed very carefully, laughing about how this morning I wouldn't even have driven into town for church. And here at 9pm, I was driving in the dark in thick snow. Max crunched on the snow, that strange noise it makes. I drove him to the junction, very slowly. And let him brake on his engine.
All clear, and onto the main road, which was thick snow despite the gritters. Max slid at first and I was worried until I got used to the feel of the drive. We moved slowly up the hill and engine braked down at the traffic lights, which changed for us, and then the steep downhill was the next part.

We were OK, it is about keeping slow, especially if there are other cars, and using the car's weight and very fine and careful steering, no braking, using the engine to control the car, a bit like when his throttle cable snapped.

We went carefully round the next junction and onto the main central road.
It got slippy there, but few cars were out, we followed a slow 4by4 a lot of the way.

Time went on and on in this silent world of darkness and white, it made me ache, Max plodded, not complaining, as we went slow on the fast road, through ice in the village, and up where the road rises and is guarded by crash barriers. The 4by4 vanished, and we crawled the most dangerous junction in the district, and there were cars everywhere down there.

Now a car was tailgating us, very dangerous in those conditions, and speeding up was dangerous too. We turned towards town and left the cars behind on the white untouched road that skirted town, and on we went, over the rover junctions and very careful on that top one, which is hazardous even in good weather.

Now we were making progress despite the snow and slush.
Up to the lights again, onto the main road, and with no trouble with sliding or cars as we came to the final junction.
And onto the drove, where the snow was deep, thick, treacherous.

Old gritter lorry came zooming by, so we flashed him a thank you. And now we made our way the last bit of the journey, and came to a thankful halt. It took an hour.

You know I wouldn't have done that if it hadn't been an emergency.