Prang!

Took the kids to school in the car this morning. Had been planning to walk through the snow, since the side roads here are so treacherous - Warwickshire - but couldn't find boots for one idiot son, who, as soon as we started off down the road, managed to trip over and get his trousers soaked. So back in we went, and by the time we reemerged, the car was the only option.

On the way home, a journey which usually takes about three to four minutes but which took a majestic twenty-five minutes this morning, I took a right turn and found myself - and the car - sliding swan-like across a sheet of black ice. Luckily no one was in front of me, because I had no control whatsoever.

I ended up, thanks to the dodgy camber of the road, on a downhill slope, thudding to an abrupt stop against a high grassy kerb - where my first thought was, how the hell am I going to get out of this?

I eased it into reverse, and thanks to the foresight of the car driver behind, who had left me plenty of room for my spectacular skid, managed to back up the slope out of the black ice, and onto the infinitely safer slush at the centre of the road. From there, I limped home at 5 mph, a little shaken but happy to discover only a scratch on the front bumper at the end of it.

I'll be walking the kids home this afternoon though. Wet trousers or not.

Light & Shade

Tonight I attended a lively poetry night in Coventry at the Liquid Cafe Bar. Colin Dick, local artist and poet, was one of the readers, even though he's now experiencing serious problems with mobility. Jane Commane read too, graduate of the Warwick Creative Writing Programme and heavily involved in Heaventree Press in Coventry; she was also MCing the event in Jon Morley's absence. Various other local writers came to the mic. Myself included.

It was a good evening. The next one is being held on April 3rd, when Mario Petrucci will be the guest reader.

Then, on my way home, luckily only a mile or so from my house, my car abruptly and spectacularly died.

The exhaust started smoking as I left Coventry; twenty minutes later, there was a strong smell of burning, steam billowing about the car. Then the engine died as I slowed for a corner and wouldn't restart for a few minutes.

I had driven maybe another hundred yards when the needle spiked dramatically into the red. The stench of burning was incredible, steam pouring from under the bonnet and out of the exhaust. It was after midnight by then. I pulled onto a rough track and rang my husband, who turned up some fifteen minutes later armed with oil, water, a tow-rope.

Turns out the head gasket had blown, there was a leak somewhere and the cooling system was completely empty. And the car had only been back on the road for six weeks after a spell of some five months on SORN, due to too-expensive repairs to the exhaust and the heater matrix. So once again, Jane is without wheels.

However, checking my emails when I finally stumbled in, I discovered that a piece of short fiction I wrote for the US market a few years ago had been shortlisted for some American fiction award in 2007. It didn't win, unfortunately, but it's always nice to know you were shortlisted for some prize or other. Something nice and something nasty to round off a complicated week.

Looks like the kids and I will be walking to school for the foreseeable future.