Because we live on a hill, we have been out regularly helping drivers, mainly women, as it happens, who seem completely oblivious to the fact that when you feel your car starting to slide it’s a good idea to take your foot off the throttle.
Grannies and boy racers are worst. Both types have their brains wired so they can’t lift the soles of their feet off the pedals until it’s too late.
As yet another kindly retired teacher slammed the kerb outside Maciver Towers with another nearly new Ford Fiesta the other evening, the old familiar strains of Pirelli’s finest tyres dancing on ice were heard in the land.
Rushing out to help, I found that a mound of solid snow was stopping it going downhill and Henry Ford’s petrol engine with less power than our vacuum cleaner was no match for the law of gravity when the mercury had fallen to -8C.
An innovative solution was called for.
Barging into the house, I found Mrs X gently stirring my Horlicks. I didn’t mess about.
“Right, you, get those stockings off. Now.”
Her face lit up brighter than the Christmas tree as she mumbled it was only 10pm.
It fell again when I grabbed the still-warm hosiery and told her I was going to put it under Mrs Mackay’s tyres because she needed to get a grip.
She wasn’t the only one, I heard Mrs X sigh.
Then it happened to me – and in North Tolsta of all places. Having to go up there last Tuesday, I took the Mrs with me. She said she wanted to take some photos.
I didn’t object because, with these difficult road conditions, I thought she would make excellent ballast.
Taking a wrong turn after the post office, we found the road led down to a dead-end. There was a house down at the foot of the hill. Should we chance driving down? One of us insisted it would be OK. I think it was her, although that isn’t how Mrs X remembers it.
It wasn’t the right house and it wasn’t OK. Despite my famous skill behind the wheel, about halfway up, the Vectra began to skid wildly as if it was driven by a granny or a boy racer.
The ballast didn’t help, but screamed I shouldn’t have gone down. We were stuck. Nothing else for it.
“Right, you, get those stockings off. Now.”
Not that long ago, my face would have lit up if she had said she wasn’t wearing any. Not this time. She knows full well that Tolsta is a cold country. Why hadn’t she prepared properly?
No, don’t change the subject. I didn’t put on my long-johns because it wasn’t a Sunday. It’s a Free Church thing. Our arguing was interrupted by the nurse who wisely had left her car at the top of the hill.
Then Michelle, the postie, arrived. Although the finest in the NHS and the Royal Mail put their shoulders to the Vauxhall with Mrs X, I went nowhere fast.
By then, the North Tolsta bush telegraph had been clicking away and news that a numpty from Stornoway was skidding on the hill was beginning to spread. It wasn’t long before a helpful fellow arrived offering to tow me up with his 4×4.
That would have been too humiliating. Mrs X would never let me forget.
I would freewheel down once more and take one last run at it.
Thankfully, that worked. So thank you, North Tolsta. As I have always said, you are the kindest people in the world.
Unlike me and Mrs X. We decided not to send cards this year but send the cash instead to the Salvation Army, which does fantastic work behind the scenes at this time of year.
There would be fewer presents for the nearest and dearest as well.
We told people we didn’t want anything, but to put the cash to their favourite charity, if they wished.
Of course they complied. Not. What can we do? We can’t break the pledge and start buying them presents now.
We are officially the stingiest family in the Hebrides.
Even Cameraman got me a present. Aw. He went scuba diving in Loch Erisort and brought me a bag of handpicked scallops. I am not doing the same back for him, either. Sorry, no way. I panic in the bath.
The language of presents is changing. I heard a pensioner in the computer shop down the road last week with his grandson. The excited wee man was making the most of the excursion for presents with grandpa and was wanting this and wanting that.
The bodach sighed loudly and told the lad he was lucky to get computer games and DVDs. In his day, he said, all he got for Christmas was an apple and an orange.
“You were really lucky,” says the boy. “A computer and a mobile phone. Wow.”
What did I get? Having recently let slip my fondness for wearing socks three at a time, I was inundated.
I got all sorts. Long, short, ribbed, looped terry, cotton-rich, novelty ones with Love Machine written down the side, ankle socks and, my current favourites, thick thermal ones.
Obviously, I would send thank-you cards, but that cash also must go to the Sally Ann. If I’m going to be Scrooge, I am doing it properly.
