The Blizzard of 2010

Okay, maybe it wasn't technically a blizzard on the 23rd of December, but we'd had a heap of snow and then a Very Strong Wind which took said snow and made landscapes of it.

Drifts were indeed drifting.

Drifting across roads.

To take up residence at bus stops and other sundry places where drifts hang out.

It was a white-out kinda day.  A day where I was profoundly thankful that:
A) I had a Volvo
B) it was stick shift
C) it was black

Ever try to find a silver car in a white out?  I'm sure I'll be kicking myself when I have to find my black car in the dark, but for now I am very grateful that I can find it in the snow, because I got a lot of snow.  I have a lot of dark too, but rarely do I need to drive somewhere after dark these days.  "These days" being here in DK where I am not really supposed to be driving but sometimes you have to bend the law in order to obtain a Christmas Duck.

The Christmas Duck is very important to Danish Christmas, unless you are eating pork for Christmas, in which case you don't need a Christmas Duck and driving out into a snow storm to get one is Incredibly Stupid.

I had just returned from the land where pork is Not Allowed and really would probably have been very happy to have a Christmas Pig, but I do like duck and I can do things with duck that you can't do with a side of pork - like stuff it, and make gravy from the giblets and drippings.  And I'm really rather opposed to pork crackling.

Pork crackling is skin and fat that has gone crispy in the oven and it just stares up at me and says "Cardiac Infarction" and I don't like it when my food talks to me.

So anyway, The Duck.  The Danish Boy had ordered a fancy-pants duck, I think it was free-range and organic, but at the very least it was Never Frozen, from the butcher's in the neighboring village (we don't have a butcher here, although according to the sign in one of our bars he does visit on Wednesdays, but whether that's to sell his wares or to get drunk we've never quite established, I mean, a sign saying "Butcher is here Wednesday 12-4" is rather vague, don't you agree?) to be picked up on the 23rd.

When we had a white out.

I'm fairly sure that the Danish Boy had not anticipated this turn of events and even if he had, I'm sure that he fully intended on being done with work in time to go get The Duck himself, but with the white out there was a surprising little amount of news for the newspaper because everyone stayed home and you can't really write a full news spread about how no one did anything because it was bloody awful out.  So while my husband waited for someone's kitchen to catch fire (never did happen), I was left to sort out The Duck.

(At this point I should state that my MIL was completely panicking about the prospect of me out on the road and insisted that the DB would surely not wish me to do such a thing.  I mollified her by calling the DB and telling him my plans and the DB, knowing his wife is freaking AMAZING was all "right, call me if there's a problem with the butcher.")

I loaded my BIL, his girlfriend, and my SIL into the car with two shovels and we drove off.  Hey, I'm not stupid, if I got stuck in a drift I knew I couldn't dig myself out or push my car out of the snow - I'm freaking 6 months pregnant!  I drove the entire way in 2nd gear, dropping into 1st to bring the car to a controlled stop.  I did manage to get the car into 3rd when we were on our way to the supermarket in the other town on the island (hey, after a successful duck acquisition, it seemed prudent to go ahead and get the rest of the shopping done in case the snow got WORSE). I navigated by sign posts and trees, which generally mark the edges of the road, but I also had to try to remember where the road might be because in some cases the snow drifts gave the impression of bends where there were none.  This would have been easier if I drove the roads regularly or hadn't been out of the country for the last 7 weeks, but I'd ridden shot-gun enough times to remember the way.

Apparently everyone else in the car was slightly terrified and very relieved when we made it home, but Spawn and I had a blast.  We'd totally do it again!  I'm thinking that I should be one of those rescue vehicle drivers because I think the "where is the road again" game is ACE!

We (and I use that term loosely, I kept the car going and the heat on for the others, I'm all heart like that) dug a Mercedes station wagon taxi out of the snow on our way to the butchers.  We never got stuck.  We never slid.  We came home with a Christmas Duck and loads of other food, including more citrus fruit than I've ever had in my house at one time.  If anyone manages to come down with scurvy in this house, it can only be through willful negligence.  Or a surfeit of gingersnaps.