It snowed heavily midweek, and the hills were buried under nearly a foot of it until yesterday. It was falling fast enough to justify working from home on Wednesday. Then it warmed and the rain started, and the moors are mostly back to their customary winter colour, with only a starling spatter of white where the snow hides in pockets between higher ground.

I have to be back by five so I head up to the conduit, with a brief pause where the Local Shop was to inspect the vicious waterbars and scout out alternative lines that will avoid slashing holes in my tyres next time I come down this way. I make a quick stop at the top to admire the sunset, then carefully pick my way down the reservoir track, switching over the lethal frozen tramlines of compacted snow left on the hardpack and tarmac by farmers’ 4x4s. Across the river, across the stream, these new waterproof socks work better than the old ones. Grind up Wessenden Head into the teeth of a hearty headwind, all the cars are giving me lots of room today for some reason, and a white-van-man even holds back uncharacteristically to wait for space to pass.

At the very top of the hill I discover a rolled car, ten-fifteen feet off the road on its roof, assorted motoring detritus all over the ceiling, a child seat in the back, but no sign of any driver or passengers. The exhaust is cold, it looks like it’s been here for some hours at least, but there’s no sign that anyone else has been along to do anything about it. There is ice and snow all over the road, it is not hard to reconstruct what probably happened. This isn’t the first time I’ve found a crashed vehicle up on the tops, they seem to crop up every couple of years, a few yards off the road, upside down or on their sides, sometimes obviously stolen and deliberately trashed or burnt out, other times like this, oddly abandoned chunks of somebody else’s very bad day.

Satisfied that no-one’s life needs saving I ride on, pedalling round the curves as fast as I can, between banks of snow encroaching onto the road. It’s getting dark, I want to get off the tarmac, away from the cars and their drivers. Swinging right and down onto the path home, I feel safer. The snow is melting fast even up here but deep patches of slush still grab at the front wheel, throwing the bike against the side of ruts, fishtailing me down the hill. Halfway down the sound of metal on metal tells me that my rear brake pads have worn through completely. My front brake is screeching, probably headed toward the same failure mode as the rear shortly. The headwind is strong enough that this hardly matters, I have to pedal to keep up any real momentum anyway. I meet one other rider about halfway down, we exchange appreciative comments regarding the conditions. The steeper, rockier sections are free of snow or ice, so there’s no real risk of serious incident. It’s ten past five but I think I’ll probably still get away with it and I roll back to the village happy to have got out for a bit.

Back home inside an hour and a half, and I call 101 to let the police know about the rolled car, just in case. The police call-centre chap has no idea where I’m talking about, poor sod.