The White Caterpillar – Part 1

I am reading a book called “The White Spider” at the moment.

Yes, a book! Not an out-of-copyright free Kindle ebook. It was a birthday present.

It is the story of the first ascent of the north face of the Eiger, by one of the party that did it in 1938. By all accounts, it was a pretty unpleasant experience – mollified only by the fact that they, unlike a lot of the other people who attempted to climb it, did not die.

Well, yesterday I experienced my own snowbound odyssey. It wasn’t perhaps quite as steep, or cold, or risky, or indeed historic as Heinrich Harrer’s – but at the time, it felt not too dissimilar.

Even though I did end up on a bus for quite a lot of it.

So I am calling my own adventure “The White Caterpillar”, for the following reasons:

• Caterpillars are less dangerous than spiders (unless eaten)
• Caterpillars are a bit fat and generally unsuited to strenuous physical extertion – like me

I should point out at this point that the White Caterpillar has nothing to do with the “white slug” referenced in The Inbetweeners movie... I was fully trousered – double trousered in fact – the whole time.

Part 1 – The Ascent

I don’t know if anyone else saw it yesterday morning (February 13) but the sky was uncommonly red when I was walking the dogs around 7am. So red, in fact, that everything took on a pinkish hue, much as I would imagine it would in the aftermath of an atomic blast.

In both these sets of circumstances – red sky in the morning and immediately after a nuclear explosion – shepherds are exhorted to take warning. Some people say sailors – I say shepherds.

Alas! I did not take the hint. I merely commented on how pretty the sky was, hopped onto my oft-mentioned scooter and zipped away to work. As per my undertaking at the end of “Horsforth and my balls...”, I was wearing full waterproofs.

Now, it’s about 10 miles by road from my house to my office and the journey in was uneventful.

Part 2 – Leeds to Kirkstall

It soon began to snow. I wasn’t worried. It does that a lot around here, and usually it’s only the last 100 metres of my journey home (ie the road I live on) that causes a problem. Everything else is a main road and they tend to stay clear.

I kept an eye on a planter in the middle of the road outside my windows to monitor the progress of the snow.

First, the soil was coated with snow. That’s nothing to worry about, I thought.

Then the leaves of the flowers went white.

By lunchtime, the cobblestones between the two carriageways was getting a dusting, but the roads themselves were still clear. I had no cause for concern.

I had intended to leave about 2pm, so I could get home before it started to get colder/darker/snowier and so I could get some work done when I got back. I didn't believe that there would be a problem. After all, snow had been forecast - the gritters would have been out...

By about 1.45pm, the snow was encroaching onto the road from the edges and it looked like a blizzard was in progress. I decided that it was now or never. The main roads would still be fine.

I jokingly said to some colleagues as I left that I would probably be dead in 30 minutes.

As soon as I was on my bike, I realised it wasn’t fine.

Visibility was appalling – my helmet was continually steaming up, and even when I could see through it, my vision was impeded by the barrage of snow.

But worse still was the road surface. Maybe half a mile out of Leeds city centre and the snow was being compacted into ice. I was on Burley Road, which is very undulating (not unlike the motion of a caterpillar). I should have gone down Kirkstall Road. Maybe that would have been better.

Vehicles with front-wheel drive were swishing their back ends left and right. Vehicles with rear-wheel drive were only going forward at 10-20 degrees off straight. No one was going more than 10mph.

I was soon going along with both feet on the ground to try to steady my fishtailing back wheel, stopping repeatedly to let anyone coming up behind me pass, so that if I came off there would be no one to run me over and so as not to have anyone lose control and run into the back of me.

By the time I got to Kirkstall Hill, I was – for want of a better expression – shitting myself, as cars and lorries skidded around and ploughed into one another. I gave up on Kirkstall Lane, rang Elvira – who was expecting me to get home so she could leave Tancred with me while she picked Roger Jr up from school.

There was no way I could make further progress. It wasn’t so much that I was afraid of losing control and coming off my bike – which I was. I was more worried about someone else losing control and hitting me.

I pushed the bike on foot into a car park – approximately 300 metres and it took me at least 15 minutes as I had no grip from my shoes and the bike weighs about 18 stone. It was like dragging an unconscious fat man on a skateboard across an ice rink, with a runaway Zamboni careering towards you.

I locked up, and set off on foot.

Come back tomorrow for the second exciting episode of Roger of Sicily’s attempt to get home in bad weather!