Frost was thick on the windscreen and windows this morning. Scraping with the schoolbag left only swooping slits of visibility unaffected by the swish of the wipers. There is, of course, no form of heating in the van.
We crawled cautiously, semi-sighted, across junctions and around corners until, on the slope by the park, we turned head on toward the sun. That first lick of low light was enough to temper the ice which now slid softly sideways under the rhythm of the blades.
“Look!” exclaimed secondspawn, “I’ve never seen the windscreen so clear. It’s like it’s not there at all.”
The first touch of sun
and the windshield frost is gone —
so clear a view!
(“Windscreen”? Do we have ANY automobile vocabulary in common?)
What’s an automobile, mummy?
Why is that boy talking to a dead Egyptian, mommy?
Hush, dear, we don’t speak of such things in public.
Now I know what to get you for Christmas
TG – we actually have one of those, somewhere. I think.
Dave – almost none at all would be my guess. I wonder why.