Chicken Licken Had A Point!

The Sky Falling (near) My Head


Bloody freezin'.

Up to some sensible dry but frozen speed on the A31 out of Alton and toward an Arctic' (great pun!) with a car acting all hesitant behind it. Explosions of ice scattered hap-hazardly across the carriageways, which made for an interesting slalom to distract me from the morning's chill. Catching the car, I wondered why they were going so slowly; they'd been quick out of the roundabout trap only moments earlier. (Passing the Alton slipway). Odd.

I pulled alongside the car and prepared to take the truck and noticed how ragged it's grey roof looked; like it had rigid sides and a canvas roof that was wearing from the wind. Then a chunk of ice 2" thick and 2' across lobbed off the very spot that had caught my eye. "Steady on!" And we backed off the throttle as yet another Titanic-sinking ice clump flew up into a lazy arc in the lorry's wake before zeroing in on us like a cruising missile. We were saved again by the turbulence from the cab and the projectile veered (thank goodness) across the carriageway at about 12' and landed in a dramatic firework of shattered ice on the verge. We backed fully off!

Chicken Licken

Chicken Licken's fabel had come to life - I'll never read the story to my kids without warning them that this is not a silly as he had sounded. (Not to be confused with chicken licking, which it's self can be confusing between that great KFC-style institutionalised licking of the chicken-fat-sodden fingers [yummy] and something I guess can only be described as chicken porn.

"Finger-lickin' chicken"
Poultry Porn? (Nice bird, though)

Neither we or the car would commit to passing the truck now. Huge chunks of what must have been pretty deep frozen standing water from its canvas roof were being whipped up off the tarpaulin in equal measure of size and velocity. I can't imagine one of those bergs hitting me on the helmet without causing significant damage to it and what lies beneath; a shoulder or belly shot would have unseated me, I'll bet. (Even with my sixth and most protective belly).

Not what you want to meet on the A31; not dropping from the sky in any case!

In the end I made a calculated charge along side the truck in 3rd gear and crossed what anatomy I could that I'd made the right gap. The car didn't follow. I didn't look back.

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