So it's been a cold winter with a bit of snow. Up to now, even when it has been at its coldest and snowiest, the roads have been pretty clear. But for the past two days or so it's been sleet and icy rain – as soon as it hits the ground it turns the roads into something more slippery than an ice rink.

Anyway – this evening at around 21:45 Chef answered the call to collect Gruesome #2 from the disco in town, and off he went. Just as he was driving away (I was watching) I heard a car horn beep.

So after a minute or two I looked out of the window to see a big car with his four-way flashers on, blocking one side of the street, door open, and a fellow talking to someone standing by a scooter with trailer.

I watched for a while, and it seemed the scooter guy was hurt. So I thought, as you would, bloody hell, the car has knocked that guy off his scooter. So I went outside to see if there was something I could do.

Turned out that the old fellow on the scooter had skidded on some ice, fallen over, and hurt his leg. Because the roads are so icy, the fellow in the car had said he would take him home.

Upshot: I have the old guy's scooter and trailer in my garage and my car is stuck outside (a pain, because Chef has to work tomorrow, and I really would rather it was in the garage. Anyway, the chap with the car took his daughters to the big local disco, and I took the old guy into our house for a cup of tea and to get his details, then the car guy was to come home and then take him back to his house.

He lives in a village about 5 km from us. He left his house at lunchtime to drive to the next town – about 12 km from his house. He wanted to buy an air compressor which was on offer at the DIY shop. He left there at about 2 p.m. It's 6 km from the DIY shop to my house. He had his accident when he fell over outside my house at about 21.40. He had been walking from the DIY shop (it's a fairly steep hill from that town to our house and he couldn't get his scooter up it while it was so icy).

The old fellow is at least 70, and doesn't seem to be in the best of health. He has absolutely no family and no neighbours to help him. Twice a day a nurse comes by to help him put on those really squeezy sock things, to stop blood clots.

Now I'm feeling a bit cross that my Saturday is going to be taken up trying to sort all this out before Chef has to go to work at 2 p.m. I need the garage in this weather because I drive Chef to the station every morning at 5.30 and I'm not into scraping snow & ice off it at that time. (Every minute of sleep in the morning is precious).

And now I'm feeling very cross at myself for being cross about that. I'm always saying that we have to look out for our neighbours, especially the elderly ones, and I sometimes look at old people and remember my Grandad and hope that if he had been in difficulties (or my parents – now my dad is 70 he's not as strong as he was)...

Oh well – at least I am putting my money where my mouth is as regards looking after our neighbours.

I thought doing the right thing would at least give me a bit of a glow. Well, I have a glow all right – we got 3 inches of snow in the night. I've spent the last hour digging out the car, clearing the path in front of our house (and the two neighbours' – one is very ill and one is 97 – I even cleared a path to their doors).

Most definitely he can't come to collect the scooter.

I think we'll ask the police what we can do.

The police can't help. The old boy wants to come and push it home in the snow. I really can't in all good conscience let him do that. The only thing I can think is that we get someone to tow it or something.

But I bet he can't pay for that – and I certainly can't.

His is a moped – like a Vespa – with a big trailer. It's easily as long as my car and half as wide.

Anyway, we tried to get the guy from our garage to do it, but he's really busy and hasn't managed. So we'll have to hope it doesn't snow overnight because Chef has to go to work early tomorrow.

Ho hum.

But I do feel badly for the poor ol' fellow. He has no idea who we are, so we could just steal his stuff as far as he knows. And he really is totally alone. And ancient.

It seems our chappie in the village with a low-loader (my car fixer-upper) might manage to take it back today.

If not, the scooter is coming out of the garage tonight and will have to sit outside the house with a tarp (an old tent, as it happens) over it until it can be moved – we have to leave the house (I take Chef to the train station in the mornings while it's snowy) and I really, really don't want to be digging SuperPunto out at 5am...

There are developments. The mad old cat-lady who lives 2 doors down has a son who occasionally lives with her who is only a little less mad than she.

This morning Chef bumped into him while they were shovelling snow, and asked if he knew anyone who could help out. So this guy from the other side of the village, who owns a pushbike/scooter shop in the next town, turned up this afternoon with his huge van – so we managed to get the scooter and trailer back to the old fellow this afternoon.

It was a bit fraught because there really was a lot of snow overnight and the roads are horrible. And the guy with the van was so cute. I said that we'd come along in our car, because of unloading and he said "Oh, no need, because you have done enough."

I think he was assuming there might be help at the other end, so we went anyway.

So, all's well that ends well. The old fellow even offered us some money for our help (which we refused, of course), and my car is now tucked up all warm and dry in my garage.

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