The best laid plans etc

It was, I think, the Scottish poet Robbie (or Rabbie if you prefer) Burns who wittered on about the plans of mice and men going pear-shaped. I am just another of those men. Having rested my wearying legs and back for a while, I returned to the snow clearing and had just started digging into the three inches of ice and compacted snow across the pavement when a neighbour came home from work. When he learned that I hoped to get the car out today to take SWMBO to the hospital, he went home and fetched a shovel to help. We eventually cleared two tracks just over a wheel wide (each) which I thought enough to get me up the drive and onto the road.

This morning I looked out of the window to find another two inches of snow had fallen, almost completely obliterating yesterday's work: and it's still snowing. So it's back to square one. Well, maybe square three.

Weather this bad is most unusual for us here, which reminds me of a quote from one of my favourite books, HMS Ulysses by Alistair MacLean. The scene is an inlet on the coast of Iceland during a particularly fierce gale from which a number of ships are sheltering during WW2. The wind blows back the flight deck of a merchantman converted to a carrier. With delightful understatement, an officer on a nearby ship says,'My word, that is unusual'.

Hey ho, time to tramp up to Asda, the dog foregoing her walk this morning (much to her disgust).