Wild Winter

I’m sitting at my dining table after clearing some of the snow that has fallen over the past week which I hadn’t had time to clear until this morning. It’s freezing outside, though nowhere as low as it has been when I left for work each morning this past week, and the sun is starting to send some rays out to me. I’m listening to George Winston’s Winter Into Spring feeling optimistic about the weeks that lie ahead. This music has me thinking of river streams starting to come back to life and icicles disappearing forever. Looking at the house in front of me decked with its annual long row of icicles, we aren’t close to that yet. After all, they are only about 50 cm long if that, so winter is most definitely not over.

Considering where I live, it is more or less inevitable that the weather is going to put a huge spanner in the works anytime from December to March, and even occasionally outside those months. This week was one of those times.

I change my tyres over to winter tyres at the beginning of November. There’s a national holiday, Culture Day, on November 3, and I use that as a marker in my schedule for booking my slot at the car dealers I’ve been going to since I got to this city almost 27 years ago before they get busy and I get caught out for not being organised when the first snow of the season falls. Living in Snow Country, I would never consider driving with regular tyres even if there’s just been a liberal dusting.

The frost starts to come in late October or early November, then a little bit of ice, and before long you are driving along snow covered roads cursing those who drive too close behind you. Speeds are dropped by many as they should be, but I am always amazed and shocked to see more than just one or two driving as fast as they do. Their attitude and nerve don’t impress. My nerves are impacted, and they add to the psychological pressure/stress I feel during these winter months.

Commuting takes over an hour each way when the weather is kind. I’ve been a regular user of the highway for the past 10 years every morning, and the benefits do outweigh the costs as I avoid the morning jams that are inevitable as everyone from the suburbs aims for the city centre and beyond. Also going north to the highway interchange further away from my destination actually proves to be quicker than going to the one closer in the west of the city. The highway isn’t free, but by registering and using at least 10 times a month during certain hours designated as the commuting band means a 50% reduction up to 100 km each time. A cost that is so worth it considering the time it saves. The cost is ‘shouganai', can’t be helped, necessary to me getting to my work by 8:20 am. Or so I thought until a car behind me ‘jumped’ into the back of mine while waiting for the lights to change at the end of October last year.

The damage looked slight, but the back bumper complete with safety sensors was replaced and billed to the other driver. I thought the cost was outrageous, but it was my car, my new car, so the sympathy I had for a genuine mistake and accident was dismissed soon after I heard how much he was being billed. I was given a courtesy car to use for 10 days until the repair was done, but it didn’t have the ETC (Electronic Toll Collection) system which records highway tolls automatically, I wouldn’t be able to get the 50% discount, meaning I would be out of pocket until I got my own car back. And that was when I decided to set off earlier and hit the roads through the city and rice fields to drive the 50 km every morning.

Initially it was out of necessity, but when I saw the difference in my petrol bills and of course the savings on my credit card from not using the highway, I thought I’d keep doing this until the snow came as the regular roads are not gritted or salted so you drive on whatever snow and ice is there even if the snowploughs have gone through. Until it melts, you have to just persevere. The beauty of the highway with the cleared lanes and no traffic lights of course (from my house to downtown 8 km or so away, there are over 40 lights!!!!) is without question. Traffic moves quickly over the terrain of rice fields and skirting the city … that is until you are faced with ‘fubuki’, a snowstorm, a blizzard, a real hell. And that is what happened this week.

Sitting at my desk in the large shared office, I could see that the weather was starting to turn exactly as had been promised over the previous days for the week ahead. The mountains were no longer visible to my left and snow that had started to fall slightly earlier in the day was now covering everything like a thick white blanket. The wind had yet to pick up, so I decided to drive home on the highway as the roads through the rice fields would be a slow trail on such an evening. But would they???? We can never be sure which is the best way at times like this. Things can take a turn for the worst and the highway will be closed and the highway services and police will guide you off at the last intersection. The highway can be a dense and dismal place when snow starts coming down fast and furiously. Speeds are knocked down to 50 kph, though many think they don’t need to keep to these. Tail lights act as guiding beacons as there are few lights or markers at the sides. On Monday evening I relied on those ahead of me and those overtaking on the dual carriage of the highway showing me the way. That is until those nutters with guts to drive faster than the speed limit disappeared and left me following their tracks left in the snow before the next car or truck overtook me. The highway was the better evil on Monday evening, but I didn’t want to tempt fate and get into any conditions like I’ve experienced in previous years, so I made the call to myself that I would make my first ever attempt at using public transport to cover the 50 kms if I were to go to work the next day.

Three days later it was Day 3 of eating the simple Japanese style curry rice that I had quickly made a huge pan of that evening when I decided I would play things safe. It was Day 3 of getting to grips with the complexities of public transport in adverse weather conditions … frozen points, buses not turning up, freezing temperatures described as ‘feels like -16°C’, winds biting into exposed bits of you (only around my eyes and at least I have glasses), walking over 2 km on thick ice, locating a taxi in a blizzard, getting a seat from the beginning to the end was such a joy one day, sliding on the wet train floor, automatic bus doors not opening or closing without the driver getting out of his seat to do the job, snow on the inside of the train door, and discovering that Suica isn’t accepted at some stations, though I can use on the bus. I discovered that evening, a lightbulb moment, the best that was yet to come. It seems there is a bus that will bring me back from the station, and instead of dropping me off across the four lanes that I have to cross at the lights down the road and risk slipping if I hit a white stripe under the ice, it will drop me off in front of the house next door but one. With that super knowledge, I couldn’t wait to try out the 307 the next evening instead of waiting for the 310 that sometimes doesn’t turn up and leaves me with frozen fingers.

That excitement is on hold, however, as conditions were better yesterday, still icy and dicey though, so I drove to work after the mini hiatus, leaving earlier than the bus just in case I had to quickly change plans, took the highway and arrived in just over an hour with warm toes and fingers and glasses not steamed up and the best, without a mask, especially one that was soggy.

Winter isn’t over yet … the 307 might see me yet!