It's all becoming surreal.

On Sunday we set off out of the driveway in a bit of a hurry, I suddenly needed a new passport and we were on the way to have the pictures taken. It was windy and snowing but didn't seem to be especially windy nor especially snowing. We went about a quarter mile down the road and, whump, we stopped in a snowdrift that covered the road. Next to us was a white car stuck at the side of the road. Since we were in the middle of the road I ran back to get the tractor, wanting to pull us out before a third vehicle arrived. By the time I returned a third car had indeed arrived but from the other direction, it was stuck in the drift but no threat to us. I tugged the Beetle out and Anna backed it along from whence we came. I and white car man then pushed the third car on to the road and it drove off. This story should end with me pulling the white car out and us all going back to bed.

What actually happened was that before I could hook on to the white car the tractor gently listed to port, two wheels weren't on the road but on snow and now it was stuck in the ditch. I fetched a shovel. I dug. White car man hauled. We got the tractor more stuck. We got cold and walked home to warm up and consider the situation. White car man, actually a student from that school for the very bright but not very practical in Kingston, said that he'd called the CAA when he first got stuck, two hours before, and they were on their way. They weren't, they never came.
Warmed, we walked back and tried again with the shovel and pulling with various vehicles, to no avail. By this time another car was stuck, we had a go at pushing it but the owner was obnoxious so we left him to it. We walked home again.

I bit the bullet and called the neighbour with the real tractor. He had a surprising amount of trouble hauling me out but he got it done. He looked at the stuck cars "you know these people?". I said I knew white car man now. "OK" he said "but he hooks on". He then explained that he was concerned with being sued, having been the subject of litigation when trying to help in the past. White car man seemed unconcerned about possible damage to what I now knew to be his sister's car. He was out in a second. All the while obnoxious man had been demanding to be pulled first. I handed the chain up to the cab, "him I don't know" I said leaving a decision on rescue to the neighbour's conscience.

By now the roads were terrible, they were all officially closed but that's so often the case as to be no quide. On Sunday they were bad. By degrees, white car man stayed for dinner and then for the night. I expect we terrified him by asking if he wanted to watch the film we'd rented, TransAmerica, and then playing him some of The League of Gentlemen. "OMG, already I've seen three cats" he had said shortly after arriving; cats and the transgendered are not what you expect when sliding into a snowbank.

In the morning we set of for the city in convoy. Once clear of the really bad bit I stopped for gas, the visitor pulled in, thanked me and went on his way.

I cleared the next hill and saw a yellow Escape in the ditch on the left. On the right, resting against a snow bank and facing the wrong way, was a familiar looking white car. I stopped and wound the window down. "Do you need rescuing again?" I said, archly.