Little bear made it to school

Not all the snow from yesterday melted, and what was left and all the water lying around froze overnight. It was slippy, treacherous and crunchy underfoot with far too much black ice.

The walk to school is measured in yards. It isn't a long distance, and even in driving rain and wind it isn't that bad. I normally leave five minutes before the bell goes, and that allows for little bear dawdling.

In this weather, however, there is the slope. The downside of living on a side of a hill, the basic geographical reality, is that there is a steep incline no matter how I go. And I am terrified of falling - I have dislocated my left shoulder three times now, sprained both ankles and a wrist, I only dislocated my right shoulder once but it took two years to heal, and I have torn ligaments. Some of the fear is rational, if I land awkward I will almost certainly get hurt. On the other hand a lot of it is irrational. There is no real reason to think I would inevitably hurt myself, and I may not fall at all. I am convinced that the nervous and tentative little steps I use make things worse.

So I crunched over the grit that OH had put down Sunday night, crunched over the ridged snow and ice that is covering our 'road' which is about medieval standard, and along in front of the bathroom showroom improbably tucked away behind and in front of the shops. There was a slight incline up to the slip road to Matalan, but nothing outrageous, perhaps 25 degrees. The slip road to Matalan is lovely and ridged and has had lots of traffic, so crossing that was lovely. Then there were the choices. Normally I walk down the grass bank on to the path that goes along the side of the school. This is steep, and of course lovely and icy and slippy. I could have walked up to the top of the hill (steep incline, around 45 degrees) and then back down, and kept to pavements with a hand rail or fence to grab should I slip. However that was likely to take a lot longer and be more slippery. I could go the other way along the road, down a shortish slope which isn't good but not as bad, along the dual carriageway on a pretty clear path and then into school, but little bear was already fretting about being late. I went down the bank. Actually, looking back, I went down the bank at the same place I saw someone fall yesterday.

They say a coward dies a thousand deaths, but the hero just dies once. All the edging along, with those gripper things on my shoes, with little bear skidding and sliding and running on the clear bits, was extremely bad for my stress levels. Then I went up the five separate slopes to drop little bear off in his classroom. Then down the five separate (cleared and gritted) slopes, out of the school, along the dual carriageway, picked up the paper and then along the medieval standard road with lots of stones and mud to break up the ice. It will be fine when I pick up little bear.

Of course, tonight we are due a long freeze so tomorrow we start all over again. I am now really looking forward to summer.