The orange carpet

I realized that I have forgotten to tell you about the carpet saga.

Last September I had to go for 3 days to Montreal with my boss John, to a conference.

Before we left we planned carefully where we would eat and other things we wanted to do during our visit. John chose to eat out at a very nice Indian restaurant, we went for the all you can eat buffet lunch which wasn't perhaps the best idea before a long afternoon of meetings.

I found a British fish n chip ship and introduced him to mushy peas...yummy!

At this point I should tell you I like IKEA and the one in Montreal is the closest one to where we live. A mere 8 hour drive or less than 2 hour flight! John had never been to IKEA so happily obliged to come with me for a slice of dime bar cake before my flight back home. I was very careful choosing small items that would fit in my case or carry on bag until I saw an orange rug. Rugs are very expensive in Canada so when we'd decorated Josh's room last summer, I'd only got a small pretty boring rug for the middle of his room. This rug was 4' by 8' and was orange with big white spots on, it would just match his newly painted orange room and was only $30. I was tempted, very tempted! John was very convincing when he said it was a good buy and I could just check it onto the plane. Not being a very seasoned traveler I believed him! So with suitcase, laptop, handbag and 8' roll of carpet I was dropped off at the airport.

The Air Canada person directing me where to go looked at the carpet and asked what I was going to do with it. I told him I was planning on taking it onto my flight. He laughed and said he'd not seen that before and that I would have to check it in for about $70!!!! Now of course that wasn't going to happen, he suggested I left it with someone in Montreal to maybe get it to me at a later date...er no! I went back to the computerized check in and tried to check it in as an extra bag, they would let me but would charge me $25.....slightly better but for a $30 carpet (and a Yorkshire woman) still not worth it.

I went to a quiet corner of the airport to plan my next move. I had brought a medium sized case with me that could unzip and expand upwards, I wondered if there was any possible chance it would squeeze in! Well after emptying all my personal possessions onto the floor I unwrapped the carpet and started to fold, it was quite a feat as carpet doesn't bend very well but I managed to get it to a similar size as the case. Then I put it in and jumped on it just like Rumpelstiltskin until I could manage to zip up the case! There was room for a few of my clothes on top and the rest were put in my laptop bag and handbag...perfect!

I went back to the Air Canada person who did a double take when he saw me and said 'Where's the carpet?', I pointed to the case, he didn't either believe me or understand me or both so asked me again. He shook his head and when I explained how I'd carefully folded it into my case  his comeback was 'It'll probably be overweight now.' It wasn't and I sailed through check in!

The rug took quite a bit of flattening when I got home and it was certainly a surprise Christmas gift for Josh.

Here it is in his bedroom.

SNOW!

So to be honest there is only one word on everyone's mind at the moment snow!

Don't get me wrong we do love the stuff but....we have lots and lots of it.
Now I know we live in Canada and we should expect it but sometimes we'd like a break from the 2 or 3 times a week storms, cancellations and digging out.

Last Saturday/Sunday we had over a foot fall, then Tues/Weds who knows how much fell but some of the drifts were shoulder high and we had another foot fall this weekend. If we weren't fed up with that lot we are expecting another 40cm today and smaller amounts later this week.

It was so windy the snow blew off the cars, trees and roof and drifted.

With the snowblower not working and one less person in the family here to help shovel, as well as the fact I hurt my neck before Christmas shovelling we have splashed out on hiring a plowman to clear our drive after each storm. This has to be one of the best decisions we've ever made. After the storm finished on Wednesday he came with a huge bulldozer and even with that it took him some time to actually get up the drive and clear it.

the wonderful plow!

David has been on a course at work for the past 3 weeks. Two people travelled to attend the course and another one to teach it. They were from the USA and Australia. These 3 decided to take advantage of the snow and to go skiing a couple of Saturday's ago. They were in a hire car which wasn't fitted with snow tires. When they came off the slopes it was dark and they were following the sat nav to get them back to Fredericton. Unfortunately the sat nav decided to take them the most direct route back to town down a wood road. With the snow on the road they couldn't see it was an unmade road and as there were some tire tracks on it they continued down it. It very quickly got very narrow and unsuitable to drive down and they got completely stuck. They had limited cell phone coverage and had to walk down the track to get a signal. I have to mention at this point the windchill that night was in the -20's. The only number they had to call was David's so around 6.15pm we got a call from them asking for help. After trying to get the hire car company to rescue them and failing we had to call Josh to bring the car home so we could head out and try to find them. We decided to try and get to them from the other end of the road they were stuck on as we really had very little idea how far they had managed to go. The road was ok to start with just snow covered but very quickly it got narrower and became a single track with very large rutts. We slid into the side and managed to get out again, at which point we should have resorted to plan b (whatever that might be!) but instead we continued on until a big bump took off our exhaust which then dug into the snow stopping us from moving either way. David had to get underneath and unhook the whole exhaust. We briefly managed to get cell phone coverage and get a message to the 3 we were supposed to be helping telling them to walk to us. As we started reversing the car approximately 2km back down the track they came walking towards us. We all walked out following the car which David was reversing. It was a long slow, dark, cold walk. When we got to the wider bit of road we all piled into the very noisy car to get to the main road where Isaac had been asked to meet us with a vehicle roadworthy to drive home!

While David drove everyone home me and Isaac had fun driving the car back home. The exhaust was making such a loud noise we had to drive with tissues in our ears and the windows open because of the fumes!

The next day after church we all went back out again to try and retrieve the hire car and our exhaust!
A friend from church followed us with his truck and plow to help us. Unfortunately it was quite a long drive and the truck started to overheat and we found it didn't have any oil left.

the wood track where all our adventures took place, the stuck car is 1km further down!

Eventually we got to the stuck car after parking on the road and walking about 1km down the wood track. It was well and truly stuck with the front wheels completely iced up. It took lots of digging, pushing, pulling and a snapped tow rope before we actually got it out of the hole. It was quite a steep slippery incline and the truck couldn't manage to pull the car the 1km to the road. It was now nearly dark and we were beginning to wonder if this saga may go into day 3. On the way in we'd passed a farm so while the truck reversed out a couple of us went to call on the farmer to see if he could help. As the truck was reversing a car came down the track and skidded across the track nose diving into a ditch. A Chinese family got out! It transpired they too had been following their sat nav!!!!

the stuck hire car!

So we got the Chinese tourists car out and the truck and went to call on the farmer. His mother wasn't at all surprised that strangers were knocking on their door on a Sunday night, she just said 'He's over there' pointing towards her son who was using his tractor to snow blow his pond to make an ice rink.

Even with a huge tractor fitted with a plow and a snow blower it wasn't all plain sailing towing the car back, probably 1 1/2 hrs later after having to get a chainsaw to chop back a number of trees the car was finally on solid ground. It was certainly an adventure!

All I have to say is roll on spring!