Incident 14

For the detailed account of this incident - see the text below the last photo/diagram

Twenty years ago I bought my first ever ‘new’ car. My first wife and I had two very young children and a dog. We therefore decided we needed an estate type car. We did not need (nor could we afford) a huge one, so we chose a rear wheel drive Mazda 323.

We lived in a cull de sac on a pleasant and fairly small housing estate. When we bought the house, it did not come with a garage. However, there was a garage block set aside nearby, where we owned a plot. We soon got round to building our garage and with about a year, just about everyone else had built a garage there as well.

The garage block was on the far side of our next-door neighbours house. The access road (a continuation of the cull de sac) was on a rising gradient as it passed by the his house. It then turned 90 degrees into the centre of the garage block. There were then about six garages on either side. The ones to the right were situated at the top of a slight slope (see photos).

I had been looking after our kids on this particular winters day and at lunchtime it started to snow. By late afternoon it had stopped and so I went out for a walk with them, who I pushed in their double pushchair.

When we got back I went to the garage to put the pushchair away. It was too big to live in the house, as it was of the type where the kids sat side by side. I opened the garage and was about to get them out when I suddenly had a rather naughty thought! Normally, when their Mum got home from work she would park the car outside our house and come straight in to see the kids. She would then bath them whilst I took the dog out for a walk. When I got back I would put the car in the garage. She did not particularly like putting it there as it was not a particularly wide garage and I had some tools stored at the side. That coupled with the fact that it was quite a tight turn into the garage made her a bit nervous about parking our brand new car in such a tight space.

On this day I quickly worked out a plan where I would already have the kids in the bath when she came home, and I would tell her that the dog had already been for his walk (which was true, as I took him with us). I would ask her to put the car away being as she was already dressed for the outside (in her nurses uniform, winter coat and knee length boots).

I knew that she would have to stop on the slope to get out and open the garage door, and I was now stood looking at the slope, which had a nice covering of snow. She would have to pull away from a standing start on the snow-covered slope. I wanted to try and make sure that she would definitely spin her wheels, as sometimes, newly fallen snow is not very slippery. Needless to say no one else had been up to the garages and so the snow had not been compacted by any vehicle wheels.

I decided to play a game with the kids. I suggested that I make two slides down the slope from our garage door and they could have one each. I would then run and slide down each of them in turn to see on whose slide I went the furthest (they were too small to be able to use the slide themselves). I just happened to make the two slides roughly in line with where the wheels would be when my wife later on stopped the car on the slope ready to drive into the garage!

By the time I had finished playing with the kids, the two snow slides had compacted the fresh snow quite nicely.

Whilst I was giving the kids their tea, it started to snow even more. I looked out after about an hour and it had stopped, but enough had fallen to cover all the footprints we had made going to and from the house. I could not believe my luck, as this meant that the two slides that I had made in front of the garage would now be covered over, but would still be nice and slippery underneath. I had been a little worried that she would see the slides that I had made, and then not even attempt to get the car in the garage!

My heart was racing, as it got near to the time my wife was due home. I put the kids into the bath and then just before she was due, I got them out and dressed ready for bed. I put them in their cots just as she started to open the front door. I stepped into the bathroom and called down to her. I asked her to not take her boots off and to put the car in the garage, as I was bathing the kids and told her that the dog had already been out. She agreed and did not seem to mind. After all, it did make sense, as she was already dressed for the cold. I quickly went into our bedroom and sneaked a look through the curtains. I had already opened the window a small amount, so that I could hear any tyre spinning as she pulled away from out side of the house. I forgot to mention that the cull de sac was also on a slope out the front, heading up hill towards the garage.

She got into the car and started it up. She was parked parallel to the kerb, with the drivers side next to it, and was facing up the gentle slope. As soon as she started to let the clutch up her nearside wheel must have started to spin on the snow as I heard that wonderful noise of a spinning wheel sliding round and round straight away. Unfortunately I was looking at the offside of the car and could not see it! The car did not move at all. She must have dipped the clutch because the noise stopped but then the engine noise increased as she obviously pressed the accelerator a bit harder. This time I saw her rear offside wheel start to spin. The car still did not move and she let it continue to spin for quite a while. Oh how I would have loved to hear what she was saying!

She then gave up and the reversing light came on. I saw her turn the steering wheel quite a lot to her left before she started to let up the clutch. It was obvious that she was trying to move away from being so close to the kerb. Perhaps she thought she would get on better trying to pull away up the slope from in the middle of the road, rather than in close to the kerb, where the snow was deeper (as no one else had driven there)? When she did start to move backwards she only went about a foot. Suddenly the car jolted slightly at the front and stopped moving, and then her rear offside wheel started spinning again. I could not believe it. She was spinning whilst trying to reverse DOWN the slope! I then realised what was happening. She had turned her steering wheel so far to the left that her front wheels had reversed about a foot and had then come into contact with the kerb. She was now trying to reverse whilst her front wheel was attempting to climb up the kerb. The steepness of the kerb was causing enough resistance to make her rear wheels spin on the freshly fallen snow, even though the car was heading down a slope. Now I really did want to be a ‘fly on the wall’ to hear what she was saying. She had got herself completely stuck right outside our house, and it was all of her own doing!

She soon gave up trying in reverse and tried to move forwards. There definitely seemed to be an element of frustration in her driving now, as when she tried to pull away, she really let the clutch up with some force and revved the engine a lot. It was enough to make the car move forward about a foot but then she could not get any further due to her wheel spinning. She was probably not helped by the fact that she still had her front wheels turned sharply to her left. Maybe she left them like that on purpose, in order to try and move away from the kerb a little, so that she would not have to turn so sharply when she next tried to reverse. On the other hand, perhaps she was just not thinking, nor realising that having them turned so much would greatly increase the car’s resistance and make it much more likely that her rear wheels would spin when she tired to pull away. She was still on the slope and her rear offside wheel was still in the deeper snow on the side of the road by the kerb. Her wheels were now spinning at an ever-increasing speed and she was really making some noise. I was surprised that all the curtains did not start twitching in all the neighbours houses, with them looking to see what was making all the noise!

It was obvious that even with the extra power, she still could not get any further forward. She stopped trying and then everything went quiet for almost half a minute. I am not sure if she was contemplating what to do next, was sat there crying, or if she saw someone walking along the pavement in the distance (who I could not see), and did not want them to see that she was stuck?

Whatever the reason, suddenly she selected reverse and this time she turned the front wheels so that they were almost straight and back parallel with the kerb. She slowly reversed until she had gone back past the end of the kerb, to where the parking bays started. She slowly manoeuvred the car out towards the middle of the road. She then stopped and for some reason then tried what can only be described as a Grand Prix type start! I don’t know if it was the frustration of being stuck, or if she thought that this approach was the one most likely to succeed. Which ever it was, it failed! I heard a wheel start to spin at high speed and the car just sat there, in the middle of the road, not moving an inch. She did not even try easing off and gently pressing the accelerator up and down. She just went for it at top speed - It sounded like a jet taking off. She sat there for quite a long time – at least 20 seconds or more with the engine in ‘take off’ mode.

She was in the centre of the road, where the surface had snow on it that had been fairly compacted where vehicles had driven in and out of the road since it started snowing at lunchtime. With the extra covering of snow that had fallen at tea-time, it must have been pretty slippery. Also, the further back down the road that she went, the steeper the slope became. It was pretty gentle right outside our house, but then dropped away more steeply as it went around the corner and down toward the junction with the next road called Birch Road. She had not gone as far as the corner, but was still on slightly more of a hill than when she had been by the kerb outside of our house.

She then had a decision to make. It was obvious that she had to reverse again because she could not get any traction when trying to go forwards, but she had a choice. She could either carry on, straight back and stay on a more gentle slope, but risk ending up too close to parked vehicles that would then prevent her from reversing again, if she was not able to pull away up the slope. The alternative was to turn and reverse around the corner before having another attempt. If that failed, she would still be able to reverse again as there was the junction with Birch Road behind her, but the problem was that our road, from the corner down to the junction with Birch Road was steeper here, and so she was less likely to be able to pull away.

I have no idea if she considered these things, but she did seem to be looking around over her shoulders in both directions once she had stopped, so may be she was thinking about it.

She selected reverse and started to turn around the corner and back down the hill towards Birch Road. I assumed that she would stop somewhere here and have another attempt. However, she just kept on reversing and went right down to the junction. She stopped just before where the Give Way line would have been (under the snow) and appeared to look both ways. She then carried on reversing out onto Birch Road, which was the way she had come home.

From my view-point, Birch Road continued behind a house opposite ours and led to the main road through our Estate. However, from the junction with the main road, Birch Road ran downhill past the junction with our road. This meant that as soon as her car entered onto Birch Road, she was having to start to reverse up hill. The slope was not too bad but I quickly realised that there was a chance that as she was reversing a rear wheel drive car up a slope, I might yet see more spinning!

No sooner had I thought it than it happened. The car was about to disappear out of my view behind the house, when the nearside rear wheel (which I was looking at) started to spin. I think it lost traction when the full weight of the car reached the end of the downward slope in our road and went onto the upward slope of Birch Road. Also, there had been a lot more cars using Birch Road as compared to our small cull de sac, and so the snow was pretty compacted all across it.

Almost as soon as her wheel started to spin the car slowed right down and then stopped. It was lucky that it stopped as quickly as it did, because I still had a full view of it (just). Had it gone back even a few more feet I would not have been able to see the back end of it any more, and that would have stopped me seeing the all important rear wheel!

I suspect that my wife had been hoping to be able to reverse all the way back up Birch Road to the main road, so that she could then take a run at getting into our road and up past our house to the garage block. After all, she had only recently done exactly that and I assumed that she made it without too many problems, although I was seeing to the kids and did not actually witness her arrival. I would imagine that she was pretty worried when she only managed to reverse a car length or so back up the slope in Birch Road. She obviously wanted to try and get back further because the spinning wheel then stopped for a few seconds, and then started again. She was trying to have another go at getting back a bit further. It was a silly thing to do, as it was obvious that if she could not get enough grip to reverse when approaching it from a rolling start like she had the first time, there was no way she was going to be able to pull away now when trying from a ‘standing start’ from actually on the slope!

She must have tried pumping the accelerator, as I saw the spinning rear wheel speed up, then slow down, then speed up again a number of times. However, it did not help, as she was not able to move the car backwards at all.

She now had three options. The first was to move forward and park up at the side of the road further down the hill and walk home. The second was to drive on down the hill in Birch Road, to where it was flatter, turn around and then come back up the hill to the junction with our road, before turning into it at some speed, with the hope she could make it all the way up to the garages. Her third option was to try and get back up our road from where she was currently stopped. I did not fancy her chances of achieving much with the last option, as she only had a car length or two to build up any speed before she was onto the hill at the start of our road. The first option was unlikely in my view, as she hated being beaten at anything, especially if it concerned her driving. Also, she would have been reluctant to leave our nice new car parked at the side of a busy side road that was covered in snow, for fear of someone skidding and hitting it! I therefore assumed that she would drive down Birch Road and turn round.

I was rather surprised when she started to pull forwards and immediately turned to the left into our road. Her rear wheel even span as she started to pull away down the slope. It then stopped spinning briefly as she travelled about a cars length, but as soon as all of her car was onto the hill, it started to spin again. Surprisingly, the car kept moving, although it was very slow.

There is nothing better than watching a car struggling to get up a hill, with it wheel spinning, whilst still moving, knowing full well that at any moment the steepness of the hill is going to overcome the amount of traction that the spinning wheel is still managing to generate!

I was amazed that she kept on coming up the slope. For a second or two I thought that she might actually make it all the way. She was now on the steepest part of the hill and was still crawling forwards. Her wheel seemed to be spinning quite slowly and I assumed that she had finally realised that low revs are more likely to succeed than high revs. It was only as she started to make the left turn leading to our house that the car finally gave up and she just sat there with her wheel spinning round and round. If she could have kept going for a few more metres and completed the turn, she would have been back right outside our house where the steepness of the slope eased off. She would then probably have made it all the way to the garages.

This evening was starting to look like one of my best ever ‘stuck’ experiences. All my favourite things were happening right outside my own house! There was a ‘real’ stuck situation, involving a rear wheel drive car, being driven by my lovely wife (wearing her nurses uniform and boots). She had got herself into this situation without any ‘pre-planning or scheming on my behalf. In addition, there was evidence of frustration shown by the driver and ‘multiple’ stuck locations, none of which were completely stuck situations, where the car can’t move at all in either direction. I much prefer to see a lady driver getting repeatedly stuck ‘short term’ before being able to move again, only to get stuck again somewhere nearby. I am not so much a fan of the situation where the lady gets stuck and can’t move at all in either direction. I find that they tend to give up rather too quickly for my liking, whereas where they keep making some sort of progress but repeatedly get stuck, they are prepared to keep on trying for much longer. This was certainly achieving a great score on my ‘stuck enjoyment calculator! Best of all, was that it was likely to continue. Little did I know then what was still to come!

My other great delight is to see a lady rocking in her seat. I mentioned this to my wife once before, telling her that it was sometimes a help to getting a car ‘unstuck’. This was on a trip when she was partially stuck, before we were married. She had tried it and it then, and it had actually helped her to get back onto a road from a muddy gateway where she had been turning. Little did I think then, or now, that she would soon be trying it again after such a long time!

Her wheels were still spinning as she sat with the car halfway round the corner. I could not see them as the car was facing almost directly towards me, but I could definitely hear them. She continued to keep the revs quite low and for a while, just sat there with them spinning. I then heard the engine revs repeatedly increase and then decrease. She was obviously gently pumping the accelerator up and down. Gradually the engine noise got louder and louder. She must have been gradually increasing the revs with each pump of the pedal. Then I saw her start to rock in her seat. She was facing straight towards me and luckily the streetlight was shining on her, and so I had a great view.

To begin with it seemed like it was just her shoulders and arms that appeared to be rocking forwards and backwards, but as the revs gradually increased, so did her movements. After about 20 seconds the whole of her upper body seemed to be pulling and then pushing on the steering wheel. Her head was nodding backwards and forwards at an increasing pace, and soon her whole body was a mass of continual movement. It was one of the best shows of a lady rocking in her seat that I had every seen up until that time.

The sound of the engine revving and dyeing away, the sound of the wheels spinning like mad on the compacted snow and the sight of her almost loosing control of herself whilst rocking so much in her seat, was almost too much for me!

I then realised that the car was actually starting to move again. I was flabbergasted. It was actually working. Whow. The best bit was that it meant she carried on doing it!

The car started to move very very slowly at first, as though it's tyres were almost burning a way through the snow down onto the tarmac. Gradually the car speeded up a little and it looked like she might actually make it up the slope and around the corner. I bet she was talking to the car. If only I could have somehow heard or recorded what she was saying!

The car started to reach the end of the bend and so she started to straighten out the steering wheel. This, coupled with the fact that the road was then on less of a slope enabled the car to gradually accelerate a little. As soon as the car was completely straight (just about where she had parked originally outside of our house) the wheels suddenly managed to get a proper grip and she suddenly shot forwards. She didn’t have much time to think, as she was almost immediately upon the next bend, which took her round towards the side of our neighbour’s house, and up the slope towards the garage block.

As she started to make this turn, I finally dragged myself away from the bedroom window, as she was about to go out of my view. I dived out of our bedroom and stopped to look in at the kids. They were both OK and so I ran into the bathroom and opened the window. I had to stand in the bath (luckily all the bath water had gone whilst she had been getting stuck out the front of the house)!

I looked just as she was slowly starting to make the turn to her right up the slope towards the garage door. She was travelling very very slowly, which was why I had time to move rooms and check on the kids before she arrived at the garage door. I assume that she was travelling slowly because she was worried how slippery it was. I could not hear any wheels spinning as she drove over the newly fallen snow, but with a slope ahead of her and a hill start to come, I was expecting to hear some quite soon!

I had a great view from over the back of the car as she started to make the turn to her right. I was amazed that she managed to climb the slope and complete the 90 degree turn without once spinning her wheels. She stopped facing the garage door with the car now nicely on the slope. I now had a clear view of the whole of the driver’s side of the car, and saw her boots and legs as she got out of the car. Luckily there was a street light positioned at the corner of the block and that coupled with the fact that the cars headlight were on full and were shinning straight at the light coloured garage door, meant that there was plenty of illumination for me to watch what happened next.

She walked up to the garage door and opened the up and over door. She then stepped inside to where I had placed the twin pushchair just inside the door. She seemed to push it back a few inches so that it was even tighter to the wall. It was obvious that she was already thinking about how little room there was to spare down each side of the garage once it had a car inside.

As she started to walk back to the car I was really thankful that I had gone to the trouble of making the slides in the snow in front of the garage doors. The way that the car had just managed to keep it's grip, whilst making the sharp turn up the slope, on freshly fallen snow, suggested that now that the car was straight, she would probably have been able to pull away and drive straight in with spinning at all!

All was about to be revealed! I leant out and listened intently as she closed the driver’s door. I could clearly see her move as she placed the gear lever into first gear. She was looking straight ahead with her head a little nearer to the windscreen than normal, as though she was already looking out for the walls on either side of the garage door, to make sure that she was in the middle and was not going to hit them. I doubt if it even crossed her mind that she might not get that far!

As soon as she tried to move her offside wheel started to slowly spin round and round. She turned her head to her right (towards the direction I was looking from) as though it was a complete surprise as to why she was not moving. She carried on looking down at the ground to her right but did nothing else! It was a really strange reaction. She did not do anything at all. She just sat there with her wheel spinning slowly round and round. There was no change of engine speed, no looking around, no dipping of the clutch – nothing! This carried on for about 20 seconds.

Going on her earlier experience in our road, I would have expected her to either have given the engine more revs, or to have stopped and then rolled the car back a few feet before having another attempt. Eventually she did stop. She then surprised me again, because she got out of the car. For a moment, I thought she was giving up and was going to come back to the house. She took a few paces in that direction, but then seemed to change her mind. She stopped, turned back and went to the rear offside wheel. She looked at it and then appeared to try and kick the snow away from just in front of it with her boot. She only did it about three or four times and then she got back into the car. She tried to pull away again and immediately her wheel started to spin again and she did not move. This time she gave the engine more revs, but she just caused the wheel to spin a bit faster.

She then stopped and allowed the car to roll back just a few inches. She quickly selected first and let up the clutch in a hurry. This was the worst possible thing she could have done, as the car was almost still moving backwards a fraction, as she started to let the clutch up. The result was even more wheel spinning. It was obvious that the compacted snow that I had made for the slide was going a good job and preventing her wheel from getting any grip!

She let it spin for quite a while and then stopped and allowed the car to roll back even more. When she tried to pull away this time the wheel span as before, but she did start to move forwards. She got slightly further up the slope than where she had stopped originally to open the garage door, but then the car slowed before stopping yet again with it wheels still spinning.

Without seeming to give it any more thought, she tried the same again. This time she allowed the car to roll back slightly further than the first time.

The slope is at it's steepest just in front of our garage door. It then eases off slightly the further away from the door that you get. By rolling back further, she was starting off with more of the car on the less steep section of the slope.

When she went to pull away this time, she gave the engine much more in the way of revs and let the clutch up more quickly. Her wheels still span but she definitely moved forwards slightly more quickly and starting heading onto the steeper part of the slope towards the garage door. It looked as though she had managed to build up enough speed to see her up and across the steepest part of the slope and into the garage. I was already thinking that the spinning wheel I was enjoying watching, was about to be the last one I would see.

Fortunately I had not taken into account her worry about the amount of room at the entrance to the garage. As the front of the car got close to the walls either side of the garage door she suddenly reduced the power to almost nothing. She was straining to look at the pushchair stood just inside the door. She was obviously really worried about hitting it. Unfortunately for her, she slowed too much and too quickly. Her front wheels were just about to enter the garage, the bonnet already having done so, when she span to a halt. If she had only carried on with the power for another second or two she would have made it. As it was she just sat there with her rear wheel spinning on the slippery snow, going nowhere!

She must have thought she had been going to make it and was probably now really annoyed that she was stuck when so close to getting in, but it was her own fault that she did not.

She was obviously very determined to still make it up the last few feet, as she started revving the engine much faster. After about 15 seconds and having realised that that was not working, she suddenly started pumping the accelerator pedal. To start with it was quite gentle but when it was obvious that no progress was apparent, she started pumping it more quickly and more viciously. The engine sounded great and the revs continually went up and down, but even better was the sound of that poor wheel spinning on the snow. In the stillness of the night it sounded so loud.

The pedal pumping show lasted about 30 seconds, which is quite a long time to keep trying the same technique. She must have been really desperate by now, probably realising that if she went back, she would really struggle to get this far back up the slope. I could just imagine what she was saying to the car, or to herself, for easing off too soon!

She eventually gave up and stopped for a second. I expected her to reverse or roll back again, so I was surprised when she suddenly tried to pull forwards again from the same spot! This time she continually dipped and raised the clutch, as the engine revs remained constant, giving off the same sound continually, whist her rear wheel span then stopped, then span, then stopped.

I remembered that once before, when she was spinning in mud just after we got married, I had shown her how to go this. She had obviously remembered and was giving it a go. Needless to say it did not work on this occasion. Too much of the car was still on the steepest part of the slope, and there was just not enough traction thanks to the slippery snow.

When she eventually stopped, she had a choice to make. Whether she stopped to consider her options I am not sure. I suspect that she did not, as she chose what I considered the wrong option (not that I was complaining!).

To my mind, she had to go backwards, but, she could either turn hard to her right so that she headed back towards the access road, or she could go straight back towards the garage opposite.

The main advantage for making the turn was that she would always be able to reverse and have another go if she did not make it. The problem with that option, and probably the reason she did not choose it (if she ever did consider it), was that she would have had to build up more speed to get up the slope, whilst making the sharp turn to her right and then having to straighten up just before she got to the narrow garage door entrance. She had already shown that she did not relish driving into the narrow entrance, and that was when approaching it from straight on. The thought of driving in having just finished straightening up whilst driving on freshly fallen snow would have scared her.

The problem that she probably did not consider with regard to reversing straight back down the slope was the potential of getting completely stuck. i.e. not able to drive up the slope but also being too close to the garage door opposite and therefore not being able to reverse any further either. She might have considered that she had managed to pull away just now, when she got a bit nearer to the other garage door, because the slope was not so steep.

Anyway, whatever her thoughts were, what happened was that she actually selected reverse and slowly came straight back down the slope. This time she went back further than before and was now only about five feet from other garage door. She made a mistake in that having reversed nice and slowly, she suddenly selected first and quickly let the clutch up before she had even stopped rolling back. If she had made a slow, gentle pull away and then tried to accelerate once she was moving, she may have managed to find a fraction more speed, which might then have got her up and over the slope into the garage. However, starting off by spinning her wheel before the car had even stopped going backwards meant that she lost any chance of getting going at the bottom of the slope. However, even I was surprised that the car did not move forwards at all. I had expected her to be able to get about half way up the slope, but she did not move at all. She just sat there with her wheels spinning round and round, and as she increased the revs in a desperate attempt to at least start moving, the wheels just span more and more.

I bet she was getting really annoyed now, and it was about to get worse! She selected reverse and had just started to head backwards when she suddenly realised that she was almost back to the other garage door. There were now only about three or maybe four feet between her bumper and the other garage door. Certainly, there was not enough room to swing round to turn and reverse past it.

She immediately braked and then slammed the car into first gear again. She let up the clutch at speed and immediately her wheel started to spin. She then pumped the accelerator for all it was worth. The engine noise went up and down, up and down and the wheel speeded up, slowed down, and speeded up repeatedly.

She was obviously really ‘going for it’, hoping to at least be able to move a few feet so that she could then reverse back round, even if she could not get up the slope.

Whilst this was going on I tried to fathom out why she was now completely stuck. It was true that there was still a slope on the ground that she was trying to get up, but it was slightly less steep than the part nearest our garage. I then remembered that when I was making the slide, to start with I kept slowing down near the bottom and so I then worked really hard trying to compact the snow on this last section, so that I could show off to the kids, and slide all the way from one garage door to the other. I had obviously done a good job and made the snow particularly compact and slippery on this part of the slope.

Eventually she gave up and stopped. She then turned her steering wheel hard to the right and started to reverse very very slowly, in an attempt to get at least part way round. The back of her car came almost right up to the other garage door as she attempted to make as much of the turn as possible. She then straightened up the wheels intending to have another attempt to move straight ahead. She was now facing towards the garage to the left of ours. She selected first and this time she slowly tried to pull away.

Perhaps she had finally realised that pulling away ‘harshly’ was not the way to achieve any success and so she was now trying the gentle approach. Her wheel span yet again, but she did manage to move forwards about a foot. This enabled her to stop, and then reverse back a little further before getting close to the garage door. She then tried to pull away forwards yet again. She had straightened the front wheels and so she was now heading toward the corner of the end wall of the garage block and the garage next to ours. Her wheels span even though she again tried the gentle approach. She managed about two feet this time before spinning to a halt. However, she now just about had enough room to carefully reverse and avoid the other garage door completely. She slowly reversed round, and once she was clear of the door she straightened up and reversed back towards the access road.

As she slowly started to reverse back around the corner onto the access road, she was lost to my sight. I wondered what she would do. I half expected her to carry on reversing and to go right back down into our road and park up in one of the parking bays.

Although I could not see her, I heard her stop and then try to pull away. She was obviously heading from the access road back into the garage block. Her wheels sounded as though they span for a second or two as she pulled away but she then came back into view as she turned the car round the left hand bend and back into the garage block.

I watched as she then accelerated towards the wall at the far end and then suddenly made the sharp right-hand turn up the slope towards our garage. She did not appear to spin her wheels at all whilst accelerating or making the turn.

However, she definitely had to slow as she straightened up on the approach. As soon as the car was straight and facing directly towards the garage entrance, her rear wheel started to spin. It must have been the case that when she was driving on the freshly fallen snow, she was able to get grip ok, even when turning up the slope. However, as soon as one of her rear wheels came onto a section of what had been my slide, she lost traction with that wheel.

On this occasion, probably due to her slightly extra speed, she managed to keep going and the front of the car actually entered the garage. It was quite a nice bit of driving, as the turn was tight, especially as she had obviously been so worried about the lack of room, even when approaching head on. The rear wheel was now spinning more and more as the car slowly entered the garage. This was going to be touch and go. I could not predict whether she would make it or not. Her speed was falling away very rapidly, but she was still moving (just) and she only had a few feet to go.

However, when the rear wheel was only about three feet from the garage entrance all forward motion of the car stopped. Her wheel was still spinning but she was not moving. She immediately started pumping the accelerator pedal up and down, as I could clearly see the wheel spinning at speed, then slowing, then quickening again. I wonder what she was saying as she was doing it. I bet she was mad, or upset or knowing her, both!

I wondered how long she would keep trying. It was obvious that she only had a foot or two to go. Would she risk reversing all the way back down and then having to make that sharp turn yet again, whilst travelling even faster? I doubted it.

She carried on pumping her wheels for what seemed like ages. It must have been 40 or 50 seconds at least. I had never known her keep trying the same thing for so long when she was stuck. It was obvious that she did not want to have to do it all again.

Perhaps she was trying to wear the snow away by continually spinning her wheels in the same place. If she was, it did not appear to be working. Although I was some way away, I could not see any sign of the car gradually moving any further into the garage. I expect that I had compacted the snow quite a lot making the slide, but that she had then really finished it off by continually driving over this section with her front wheels. The snow was probably now so well compacted that she could have span her tyres on it all day long and it would not have worn through to the tarmac.

She then gave the car one huge dose of accelerator pedal and the engine revs went through the roof. The noise was trapped in the almost enclosed garage block and must have woken up many kids who were already in bed in nearby houses! Finally she gave up and stopped trying.

I wondered what she would do now. I realised that the internal car light had come on, and she was obviously getting out of the car, even though the car was too far into the garage for me to still see her. She then appeared by the back wheel and was looking at it. She bent down and appeared to be feeling it, or the maybe it was the snow that she was feeling right by it.

She then stood up and disappeared back into the garage. After a few moments she re-appeared and seemed to be putting something by the rear wheel. It looked like a small piece of carpet, slightly larger than a car mat. She then disappeared and came back with another piece. She bent down further to the rear of the car this time. I could then see that she had placed one piece in front of the rear wheel and was placing the second piece immediately behind it. When she was happy that they were in the right place, she went round to the rear nearside wheel and bent down again. She quickly stood up and came back round to the driver’s side and went into the garage. The internal light came on and then went off again.

She was obviously back in the drivers seat and then I heard the engine revs increase very slowly. I stared at the rear wheel and after a few seconds it started to move backwards, but only about a foot. She had reversed right into the middle of the piece of carpet that she had placed behind the tyre. She stopped and soon afterwards the tyre started to turn very very slowly. The carpet stayed exactly where it was, even though I had half expected it to fly out behind the wheel. She was obviously taking great care to try and stop that happening by trying to pull away very slowly. The wheel turned and moved forward and across the small section of snow onto the second piece of carpet. There was a small gap between this piece and the start of the garage floor. It looked as though there was some snow that she still had to drive over. Suddenly she accelerated and although the second piece of carpet flew out of the back of the wheel, she gained enough forward momentum to enable her to drive across the foot or so of snow with her wheel still spinning, before reaching the concrete floor of the garage and safety. She appeared after a few moments and retrieved the two pieces of carpet from on the slope. She then closed up the garage and I realised that I needed to head to the kids room pretty quickly!

I went into them and they were both playing happily. I grabbed a book and quickly sat down and started to read to them. A few moments later their Mum came in the front door. She appeared in their bedroom doorway a little while later and asked me to help her take her boots off. She said hello to the kids and I asked why she had been so long, as I had finished bathing them and got them ready for bed.

She said: "I had such a job trying to get the car into the garage. At one point I was completely stuck. I just could not move. I really was worried. I wanted to put the car in the garage in case we had more snow, but I nearly had to give up a few times. I don’t know why it was, but I was able to drive up and around to the garages OK, but as soon as I got in front of ours, I could not stop my wheels spinning. It was as though I was on ice, but just on that bit. I could not get any grip whatever I did. I must get these boots off. My feet are killing me where I have been pumping the clutch and accelerator pedals up and down so much. You can go back to putting the car away from now on. I even got stuck right outside the house. Did you hear me revving the engine? I got stuck against the kerb and could not even reverse down our road. God I hate driving in snow. It was a good job that you showed me how to rock a car if you get stuck, when we were in that muddy gateway last year. I would have been out there all night and still trying to get into the garage”

I said: "How can you get stuck against the kerb. I don’t understand?”

She said: "Well I am not really sure. I tried to pull away to drive up to the garages. I was parked right outside, like I normally do, ready for you to put the car away. I could not move. I heard my wheel spinning and after a while I realised that I was stuck. I decided to reverse back down the road a little. I needed to move out into the centre of the road, as there was a lot of snow by the kerb and that was why I was stuck. When I tried to reverse I think the front wheels hit the kerb, but could not climb up and so the wheel starting spinning again. I tried to go forwards again but I was really stuck in both directions. I could not move. I hate it when that happens. I just wanted to be able to drive up the road after a long day at work. I did not want to find that I could not move the car at all, whatever I did. It was so annoying. I was about to come in and tell you to do it, but then I realised that you would take the mickey out of me, and so I was then determined to get out of it myself. I managed to straighten up and got back out into the road, but then I could still not get up the slope. In the end I had to go right back down into Birch and take a run up. That was touch and go if I would make it. That was when I remembered you telling me to rock the car by pushing backwards and forwards on the steering wheel in time with letting the clutch up and down. I was so relieved when it worked. I was then able to get up to the garage without any problem. Well until I tried to pull away up into the garage that is. That was when I got really stuck. I nearly got the car in on two occasions, but then got stuck just before I made it. I was really frustrated by the second time. I was only a few feet from getting the back wheel off the snow. I revved the engine like mad but the wheels just span and span. I was swearing my head off I was so annoyed”

I said: " Did you get it into the garage then or have you left me to do it?”

She said: "No, I did it. I had a brain wave and used some of the off cuts from the new lounge carpet and put them under the wheel. It was fine then”

With that the kids started talking to her and so the conversation had to stop. Soon after, I had to get ready to go to work on nights and so I did not have the chance to talk to her again about it.

Mind you, I then had some fun at work getting a police lady stuck in the snow, but that is another story!