Trapped

Saturday night was a bit of a slog this week, I fact if i am honest just about every night was I bit of a slog.

The pubs and clubs where fairly empty by there normal standards and for us poor old taxi drivers punters where sparse.

That said some of the restaurants seemed to defy the post Christmas/new years gloom looking quite busy!

 The punters who where out and about where more the crowd I would expect on a Sunday night.

 Nutters and eejits

I was having one of those nights where every job was a hassle, there was a little something to annoy me every job I did.

Little things from customers mumbling when telling me their address to having to climb out of my nice cosy car to rap my customers door, which any other night wouldn't have fizzed on me in the slightest.

(it is part of the job after all) 

But of course the driveway i had to walk up was covered in black ice.

It was about 3:30am when i got the first job that was going any distance.

It was 3 girls going to Finaghy, Hillsborough ant then to the Maze.

It was a pretty uneventful run although I did skid a few times on the black ice in Belfast but i was only going a few Mph and I doubt any of my passengers noticed.

After dropping off the last of the girls i started to make my way back to civilization.

Now the number of time i have been to The Maze i can count on one hand but over the last year or so there has been a lot of developments, new estates and the like.

It was into one of these i made a wrong turn!

I had turn into a small cul-de-sac no big deal I thought, so i turned the sat-nav on and got myself turned around.

When I tried to drive back out I found I had a slight problem.

My wheels where turning well at least the front ones where but I wasn't moving.

Having year of motoring knowledge to call upon i did what most folks would have done.

I swore loudly and pressed the accelerator harder none of which helped at all.

Instead of going forwards the cab moved sidewards and backwards

I was at least twenty miles from Belfast in the backside of nowhere at 4am and unable to move and oh yeah i am pretty sure i am starting to wake the locals!!

I was nearly ready to cry.

I had no idea what to do.

After half an hour 

I even thought of calling myself a cab to come take me home and abandoning the cab until the next day!

Except I didn't know the name of the estate I was stuck in!!

Then it came to me in a flash.

Top gear.

On Top gear when Jeremy Clarkson was on a trip to Iceland they lowered the tyre pressure for better grip on ice and snow.

I had tried everything else so figured what the hell it cant hurt.

So i let out about half the air in my front tyres and climbed back in to the cab.

I tried to move of slowly and even though my wheels still spun like crazy i was moving slowly forward at last.

It took another 2 minutes of spinning wheels, over revving engine and slipping tyres but i finally got free.

I knew all those years of watching top gear would pay off eventually.