The day before the day before Christmas Eve Dec. 22, 2007
I was to deliver 2 window-mounts to go with the prints already purchased, to a doctor’s house, to the East of the County – far away from the gallery teetering on its mountain outlook in the centre of The Lake District (at Ambleside). That morning had gone well – the first match on Tarn Hows for 22 years, since that long fabulous cold winter 1985/86. It was a close match, with loads of diving. And sliding tackles. The ice held.
Now late afternoon, the moon was high over the Howgills and, content with the radio playing Xmas songs, I set the satellite navigation to find the address. It took me off the main road up a side road. Narrowing. Twisting. Across a ford. There on the other side on a steep incline, I was suddenly on an ice sheet – melt water off the fields. Slipping back. inch by inch. Trying not to lose control. Until finally, in the perfect still. Minus 9 degrees, the car was wedged bumper to bumper sideways blocking the lane. For a vehicle including a tractor to have come round the corner and down the hill would have been to have ploughed into me. There was not a sound of vehicles to be had. I was desperate to deliver the picture mounts. I had promised. The doctor was so impassioned about the pictures – a gift for his son.
No mobile phone reception. Unsure of what was to become of the car, I rescued the two window-mounts and put them round my head (framing it I suppose). And set off. Towards the lights a mile or so away.
Past heavily-breathing oxen of the field. A barn owl disturbed of its perch. And nearing the village, a coal truck doing its rounds. Through the heavy frost I crunched.
If ever you are to see the two pictures : “Yellow Brick Road” Bradford City 1992 and “The Day After Christmas Encounter” (and you can view them on the web) – look at them with added interest. Look at the two window-mounts – look for the slightly grubby imprints to the sides where I clutched them for dear life. For they may be the very ones walked through the crunchy cold the day before the day before Xmas Eve way out there east of The River Eden.
