Progress in the PNFS saga, I hope: trustee Rhoda Barnett has offered to come and talk to Dave in person about what happens next, as a sort of preliminary mediation. Dave had to be restrained from retorting that as a signatory to the original letter (suspending him and accusing him of possible criminal malfeasance) she could not be impartial or a mediator. However, eventually and grudgingly he accepted that she was holding out an olive branch, and trying to be tactful, and that the least he could do was to accept her offer, because anything else would brand his behaviour as even more impossible than they think it already.
At 12.15pm I was waiting for Catherine at college when a blitz of hail and snow struck. We waited a few minutes for the worst to pass before she drove off. But the worst hadn't passed, and the road quickly became slushy and slippery. She kept driving, and managed very well, and snow had eased to rain before we got to the long long traffic jam caused by interminable resurfacing works with interminable temporary traffic lights at Bridgemont.
However, another snowstorm struck later, and the casualty was Mrs Harling. Dave rang while I was out walking to say she'd had a car accident and was unhurt but in a tizz. She had skidded on Silk Hill and embedded her car in brambles. I got to her house before 5pm to find her trying to cope with pupils but confused and shaken. Over the next two hours she gradually calmed down, phoned her insurers and daughter, and let the insurers arrange for the AA to collect her car and take it to the repairers at Dove Holes. She got scared and shaky again trying not to think of how she'd manage if it was written off, and, worse, what would have happened if she hadn't steered it onto the bank. She kept saying bravely, 'I'm perfectly all right, I'm really very lucky'. I said drink you rtea, make some toast and keep warm, but it wasn't much to offer after such a shake-up.
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