a minor mishap

We had a little excitement in my house yesterday.

It was snowing lightly when I went off to work, not bad at all, but about 10-15 cm was predicted to fall over a 24 hour period. My partner headed off to a town just west of Ottawa to meet up with a friend to do some work on a charity project. The project is a story for another time. He planned to come back in the early afternoon, to attend a university class he's auditing, and then we had plans to go to the theatre with friends.

My first hint of trouble was on my drive home, which took me an hour and a half for what is normally a 20 minute drive, even in rush hour traffic. There was already at least 15 cm of snow on the ground, and blowing around, and it wasn't easy getting in the driveway. As well, the path up to the house was drifted across, well over my ankles, and the steps were almost invisible.

I knew something had gone wrong when I saw his course books still by the door, but thought he might have gone straight there if he'd been caught in traffic. About an hour later, he called. "I spun out on black ice & spent 3 hours in a snowbank! Guess I need to carry my cell-phone?" At least he was unhurt, but had only just made it to a phone location, still far in the west end of the city. CAA wasn't being helpful, either. For some reason, they seemed unable to locate his car. So, in the end, he abandoned the car for the night & caught a cab home. We didn't go to the theatre.

By this morning, at least another 10 cm of snow had fallen, and of course the ploughs had been by our street leaving a small mountain at the end of the driveway, so it took longer than usual to get going.

Funny thing, the OPP didn't have any trouble finding the car last night! They had it towed to allow the snow ploughs to widen that part of the roadway, to the tune of $300. Ouch! We did some shuffling today to pick it up. Luckily his car is undamaged, but what a nuisance it all was.

I'm personally looking forward to spring.