Night was drawing in, I was lost and the signpost was illegible thanks to the thick covering of iced snow, but I turned right anyway the snow coming up over the side of my soft Italian loafers and continuing the process of wet and freezing cold which would soon have my feet as frigid and useful as a block of ice, in the winter. My day was not turning out quite as I had foreseen.

We were enjoying a lovely bit of warmth and sun for a late December day. It was perfect for being outside and doing a bit of work in the yard. Not too much work mind you, I have not changed all together, just enough to get me ouside after all the days of rain and gloom and to breathe deeply of the fresh air. As I was putting away the various garden tools in the shed, I began to notice that the wind had picked up and that there was a definite chill coming. But I thought it just the end of day and the contrast with the warmth of the sun which had finally broken through the cloud cover. By the time I had cleaned up and put on my wool sport coat and tie and headed out the door for an evening dinner and concert, the cool was definitely coming in but I had my scarf, my gloves and hat, and my car, so no reason to worry. Which is, of course, the time you should begin to worry.

It was one of those evenings where you find yourself someplace because you did not know how to say “NO”. I do like live music and certainly, good food. I forgot that the likelihood of combining good food and good music for 15 Euros in a community hall, was not exactly a sure thing. But I went with an open mind. It is so easy just to stay at home and not get out, and just cook and tube it, day in and day out in winter. So to have a bit of entertainment and food – out of the usual – was attractive. That is, until you get there.

The Salle was decorated in its usual fashion — brown paper table covers and napkins that dissolve with the first wipe. One forlorn bugie/candle burned in a slightly disguised former yogurt jar on each of the long tables. It’s certain they did not want to destroy the budget for the evening with the decorations.

And unusually, they also did not break the budget on the food either. As I had walked in, I smelled the sour fragrance of the choucroute, boiling in its pots. The sickly sweet apero was waived off in favor of some good local red so at least the wine was decent and was about the only thing that tasted good as the various platters of sausages and cabbage steamed by me. I was hoping at least for the salade to be healthy but someone had decided that a complimentary sour dressing on the salade would be a perfect match to the choucroute. Oh, I would never have made a good german…or a bad one either, for that matter.

At least the food was over, I had some wine left in my bottle and now the music would begin. I had been told that it was a jazz evening. I have no idea what we heard, but it was not jazz. The four member ensemble of guitarist, accordion, violinist and base played on and on, some times even in tune, at the same time, with each other. But I sat and tried to enjoy the experience, and finished my bottle as I waited for the intermission to head back home.

Finally, the break came and I mumbled something about needing a cigarette break to my table companions (a lie but then I did not know them) as I made for the door, I was surprised to find that it had begun snowing during the long evening. But I was not worried. I have a nice front wheel drive car and new tires, and in no hurry to get home. It was just another turn in a long day. I crunched through the snow to my car, icy water beginning to seep through the seams of my of my low cut shoes as I climbed in and started the motor. I thought it best to warm up the car a bit before heading off and all was well as I pulled out onto the small Dordogne country road for the drive back to my village.

The roads were deserted so I had no difficulty keeping my momentum and holding it in the middle of the road and I was being very careful. I rounded a bend and just then, from the deep ditch along the side of the road, jumped small deer, its eyes reflecting brilliantly in my headlights as it aimed straight for me. At the last instant I was able to jerk the car to the right of the deer and it passed down the left side of my car, amazingly not touching. But now, I had lost traction and hit on one of the new curbs that have been installed on the hillside curves in French country roads during the government road building boost of this last year.

Boom! Boom! My car lurched up on its right hand side as it hit the curb sequentially with both the right, front and rear tires but I was able to bring the car to a sliding, halt, the right front precariously over the edge of the ditch. My heart was pounding from the deer in the headlights, the crash and near total loss of control of the car. I could also tell that something was terribly wrong with the car itself. I slowly gathered myself, coming back to reality and put on my flashers which blinked back at me from the night snow. Fishing out the flashlight from my glove box, I stepped out into the slush of the roadway and went round the back, to the passenger side. The beam of the LED light immediately made clear that both tires on the right had been squeezed between the curb and the aluminum rims that shod the tires. The compression had sprung the rims and cut a gash in both. It is one thing to be faced with putting on a spare tire on a bright sunny day and then, on you go. But now, I had two tires down and the car unable to be driven. And cold freezing feet and soft leather gloves- made for driving in a nice warm car but not for playing boy mechanic on a blind curve of a slippery hillside road in the black of night in the Dordogne.

No problem, I’ll just call a tow truck. I got back into the car to make the call but got no signal. I looked at my cell phone, no connection bars. I was now in a dead cell zone. Hmmm, that can’t be a good sign. I tried starting the engine but the starter would not engage and I was stuck in more ways than one.

There was nothing else to do now, but to go find a house where I could use a phone and get help so I set out. My legs were leaden hauling along the frozen clumps that were my feet At least there was no feeling in them, though I hobbled like Frankenstein on third-party legs. I turned right at a signpost but it was irrelevant. My body began to get cold in its core. My ears were so cold, they burned like fire from the numbness. I was having difficulty going on.

“I’ll just sit here by the side of the road for a bit and wait for someone to come along,” I thought.