NARROW ESCAPE

Last Thursday, the third Thursday of the month, is New Forest Storytellers in Ringwood, and they usually let me tell there, which is nice of them. It's a fifty-mile round-trip for me [Southampton is around forty-five, Winchester about forty - but most of that is done at sixty, on roads through the middle of nowhere] but the company is good and the venue very pleasant [the Boston Tea Party's attic, or occasionally the upper floor, with easy chairs, which was the case last Thursday, because it was warmer].

Warmth was, of course, important, because everyone knew that snow was threatening, impending and imminent [not to be confused with immAnent, of course - thank goodness I know Latin!] As I bought my fish and chips at 5 o'clock from The Frying Machine [the fish and chip that visits Winterslow conveniently enough on storytelling nights, first and third Thursdays] the snow was already falling, and lying on the carpark of the Nelson, where I park my car when I'm buying fish and chips - the van is outside the shop, and I didn't want to be awkward for the customers of either.

Therefore, I was half-minded about going, but I overcame my hesitation and drove - through flying snow, thick in my headlights - up the hill, down the hill, up the hill, down the hill, up the hill, down the hill - into snow-free Salisbury, and then had the courage to continue to frost-free Ringwood, and tell The Lucky Boy to close their evening [I listened to all the others - I wasn't late or anything] - and drove back up ice-free hill and down ice-free dale - to wake up in the morning SNOWED IN!!!

And very glad I went.