Monday 16 March 2009

Back to spring

We're back home on the prairie and what a difference a week has made, with a perceptible shift towards spring.

The clocks went forward in Alberta just after we left, so it is now light till 7:30pm, which means we have the slightly weird sensation of eating supper in the light, whilst there is still a great deal of snow on the ground.

Pulling back the curtains on Sunday morning the first thing I saw from our sitting room window was a gopher hopping about on the snowdrifts and since then I've noticed them everywhere. If the gophers (or ground squirrels, to be correct) are out of hibernation, spring is definitely here.

Traveling back to Ralston from the UK on Saturday was not without incident though, I flew in earlier than Jim and collected the car from the car park. When I opened the door, the first thing I noticed was that the drivers seat appeared to have small wet patches on it. Slightly jet lagged and perplexed, I stood there for a couple of minutes trying to fathom out how the inside of the car could be wet... and then I noticed the ginger ale can...

Just to refresh you, whilst we were away, temperatures got as low as -31c. In the chaos surrounding our journey through the snowstorm to get to the airport, we hadn't prepared the car quite as studiously as we normally do and had left a can of drink in it. When it plunged below freezing, the contents froze and exploded ripping the can apart rather dramatically and leaving sticky residue all over the seats, ceiling, steering wheel, handbrake.

My face must have been a picture as it slowly sank in that I had no choice but to drive the car. Typically the first garage I stopped at didn't have any wipes either, so I drove two and a half hours back to the village in a sticky mess!

Sunday morning was spent cleaning the interior of the car and I am pleased to say it hasn't suffered any long term damage. In fact it looks a lot cleaner than it did before the exploding soda can incident!

2 comments:

  1. That must be an easy mistake to make with the can! Coo I bet it was horrible. I like the angle on your first shot was it taken by a gopher?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Actually it was more painful than it looked, I was trying not to get my knees wet in the slush and ended up twisting my neck and shoulders into a rather unnatural position!

    ReplyDelete