You wouldn't do this in England!

Awake 7.00 am.  It's been snowing for a while it seems; yesterday's tracks have filled in.

The car heater fan won't work, the temperature is minus 14 outside and breath is freezing on the inside of the windscreen.  The wind-chill makes  the -40 screen wash mist the outside with ice crystals, until they deliquesce away.  8.15 or thereabouts, into the village for spare screen wash; Marcel isn't at the repair garage.

On into St Jovite to ask the Chrysler agent where the fan fuse is.  But because the rear cabin fan is working, it must be the front fan motor itself at fault.  This is tested by beating it with the rear end of the snow-brush.  To no avail; the motor is pronounced dead.  By now, the heater wires embedded in the screen are doing a reasonable job, together with the tissues frantically rubbed inside the screen.


So it's onward to Ottawa, a further two hours away.  For some shopping and a very jolly brunch with P & N - for which our repeated thanks!  Of course, it snowed all the way there, but the ploughs had been out and at minus 12 (it had warmed up a bit) winter tyres are wonderful.....

As we left, the windscreen wiper blade tore; but thank-you Lord, there was a Canadian Tire just down the road, so we didn't have to risk scratching the screen..... CT fit purchases for you free; in a warm garage!  Yay!  Let's hear it for CT!

A frustrating trip to Sears, but two useful face flannels to combat the mist inside the screen, now augmented by the retained moisture from the super-heated  CT garage, and the stop-start rush-hour traffic...

The highway from Ottawa towards the Laurentians is the 50; for half an hour it was heavy commuting traffic, but then it thinned out, only we could barely see as our lights became dimmer and dimmer.  OK, so the lenses are a bit opaque, but this was silly.  And we were using screen wash after every fifth or sixth wipe.  So when we came off the 50 at Montebello, we washed the caked salt (!) off the lenses with screen-wash and more of those tissues; and we could SEE!

We felt like Dobby; "Master has given Dobby LIGHTS!"

A pretty easy run home from there; a very happy, if rather fraught in places, day!  And perhaps 5" of snow on the drive at home :-)