Winter. Again.

Continuing with our efforts to see and/or try all things equestrian we went to a standardbred track last night. There's a lot to learn about trotters and pacers and triactors and exactors and boxed bets but, without knowing any of that, the track offers a good dinner buffet and a laugh over minor wagers. Our best return was Anna's $3.90 for two bucks risked; should have picked that one to win!

People at the track seem clearly divided between diners having a flutter and serious gamblers. The latter don't eat, they do drink beer and no doubt before the smoke ban they puffed nervously through the evening.

It was snowing gently through the evening and quite cold, just below freezing, but still those with much invested went out to the track to look on grimly and then to dance or crumple their betting slips bitterly. I don't think mid-week regulars at the track are there for fun.

Driving home we encountered the first snow covered roads of the season. Not terrible, you can still make out the yellow line, but that's snow and it's still October.

The chickens needed locking up. It was late, I was tired and I had unsuitable shoes for a long trudge so I drove down to the barn. Beyond the gate it was dark and snow was falling but the barn itself was snug, fifty chickens, two horses and a donkey breathing will do that.

Getting up the hill was an adventure. The lane is steep and there was a glaze of snow and ice on it. This is an old picture but gives the general idea. Note that it was also dark.

I drove quite slowly and reached the bump three-quarters of the way up. At that point the "traction control" kicked in and the car stopped going forward and spun each driven wheel in turn. Two things I forget when winter starts, one is to turn that bloody thing off and the other is to turn off the windshield wipers when stopping so as to avoid the motor straining against wipers frozen to the window in the morning. The latter frustrates me because it takes me an age to operate the VW wipers due to remembering that the switch is mounted backwards but not remembering which way frontwards is.

I let the car slide halfway back down the hill. It was sliding towards a ditch but I was able to drive slightly up again, before again getting stuck, and then to roll back to the bottom of the hill. This time I disengaged the traction control (which keeps turning itself back on) and took a proper run at the hill with both driven wheels spinning. I hit the curve at the top at about 25mph which isn't a lot on a road but this is a narrow track between trees. I went slightly, but not tree connectingly, sideways. I found that to be enough to set me all aquiver.

Anyway, that's it for taking the Volkswagen to the barn until Spring.