How not to drive

When you're entering a roundabout, particularly one that is egg-shaped and covered in snow and ice, what you don't want to do is leave the roundabout at speed, narrowly miss (or indeed scrape) a lamp post, and then head face-first down a 3m deep ditch and then smash into a 1m drainage trench at the bottom of the ditch. You don't want to do this because your wife will then spend half an hour on the phone to the RAC while you try and figure out what full diff-lock actually does and then try and fit snow chains to the front tyres that are buried in snow and mud.

Unfortunately, no one gave me this advice before we set off for my parents' house last Wednesday so of course, this is exactly what I did. So it turns out that the Touareg is not as invincible as I thought. About five minutes from my parents' house at about midnight on the 23rd while we were going round the point of the egg-shaped roundabout I put the front-left tyre on the snow that was gathering at the edge of the lane that everyone else had been following and from that point on I was a dumbfounded passenger. Somehow I avoided hitting the lamp post head-on but as a result of this, ended up pointing straight down the ditch and then thumping into a trench at the bottom of that ditch.

The good news is that we are ok. Scarlett barely even woke up and actually, if you're going to have a crash, I can highly recommend the VW Touareg to have one in - very comfortable. The car is not ok and is still in England as I sit here typing this from our new chalet in Essert Romand in the Portes du Soleil. My dad has very kindly volunteered to drive it out to France for us when it's fixed.

At this point I would like to thank the anonymous saviour in his Freelander I that saved us from the ditch! After thirty minutes the RAC had not even picked up the phone yet and we were seriously looking at abandoning our heavily laden Touareg in said ditch. Extremely luckily for us, this amazingly kind gentleman had the right car, the right tow-rope and the right attitude to haul our 3-ton behemoth our of the mud. Thank you sir! You wouldn't leave us your name and number but we remain extremely grateful that you helped us!

So actually, given that we were rescued, unhurt and then Natalie and I then got to drive out to France together (rather than in convoy), and my parents now have a very good excuse to come and visit us, things haven't worked out too badly really.

Anyway, so we're here. We're safe. The Phils, Sally and Simon and their entourage have arrived and we're looking forward to an excellent new year here in France!