First the snow came. Well, yes, I know. We’ve all had our bit of snow. Everyone can cope with a bit of snow. But the trouble was, it was a country lane, early in the morning, driving King Julien to school. Everything seemed so fine to begin with. Then once round the bend, that’s when the trouble began. The car just skidded and slid, the wheels locked to such an extent I could not stop…
I tried everything.
I pumped the brakes, I shifted into a different gear, hoping the gear would help slow us. I pumped the brakes again. No difference. At first King Julien thought this was hugely funny but as my comments changed, he then realised I was not doing this for fun.
For what seemed like an age, we hurtled like a giant sledge down a steep slippery icy country lane, that had hill oneside bordered by trees and a ditch with river edged with more trees the other, and a stone skinny bridge that was beckoning us at the bottom, that had to be crossed in order to get down to school…
Well normally we do like this stone bridge, so old, so strong, and still standing after all these years, oh how quaint and so on… but NOT this day. No sir.
I just had visions of us hurtling either into the nearest tree then disappearing down the ditch, bonnet dipping into the river, or just flat into the stone bridge. How on earth was I going to stop?
I frantically looked for some way to slow down the car. Something up hill maybe, to stop us like one of those heavily laden trucks that need an escape lane to stop… Then it appeared, just as my mind remembered the route – a turning off to the right that headed up hill. I managed to gently tease / maneouvre the car in this direction and we came to a stop… just in the nick of time.
So that was the first close shave at the start of last week. I thought (or rather hoped) it was a one off event, but no. Then as we all know, the fondue ablaze swiftly followed.
A few days grace gave me a breather, but at the weekend, the car turned into a bunny rabbit, everytime I tried to accelerate, the engine cut out. I thought it was the battery, but no, the engine started first time, every time. Trouble was, every time I accelerated, the engine faded and started cutting out, this was happening every time. So what? you might think, but it affected the steering and the brakes, so was pretty hairy, plus with loads of traffic behind, I had to hastily pull of the road and get it sorted as the cars following all started to beep their horns.
We’d bounced along, but the intervals of travelling became shorter and shorter, until we were stationery and the car was going nowhere. The diesel had frozen in the car at the weekend, and today the saga is continuing…
So after all this trouble, let’s think about those delicious lunch boxes, and what yummy delights we can put in them to banish all those winter blues…
For immediate inspiration, hop over to our 365 Lunch Box Challenge blog and try out some of our soup ideas – perfect for putting an end to a frozen lunch! Particularly in this cold snap.
Do let us know how you get on!
Please tweet us @lunchboxworld on twitter or leave a comment here or on our facebook page.
So what event has shaken up your lunch box?
The Lunchbox World Team x
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