An hysterical phone call from daughter and her friend this morning sounded more like a drama on a mountainside than two teenagers stuck half way up the road outside our house. To start with I retorted (in fierce mummy style): “Oh, for goodness sakes pull yourself together, it’s only a bit of ice, so try walking slowly and confidently.” But a look out of the house window revealed that both Havana and Sophie were indeed stranded in the middle of severe ice and unable to walk up or down. So Mum Outdoors went to the rescue!

Thankfully the kind guys from IceGrips.co.uk had the foresight to send me a pair of EzyShoes Extreme Ice Grips earlier this year and so with only a slight bit of hurried confusion trying to get the ice grips over my trainers just a few minutes later I was able to perform a house front rescue and bring Havana and Sophie back to safe ground. (Honestly, you would have thought they had been stuck for days on an avalanche-prone hillside, the way they were squealing and squawking!)

The Ice Grips are awesome. The road in front of my house is steep and the ice was like an ice rink. In the EzyShoes Extreme Ice Grips I just walked as normal up the hill on the ice. Numerous other pedestrians were in the same predicament as the girls as they slipped and fell on the ice.

Next step in the rescue was to salt the road so that the G-Force could step in to do his bit to help by driving the girls to the school gates. He has now gone off to test his Ice Grips (thanks again to BlackToe for sending these out as well) on an off-road run. The G-Force and I are both doing the Marcothon this month and he has decided to get his run done first thing today, despite the ice, so he can focus on Christmas shopping later!

Sometimes adverse weather conditions can be a huge bonus – like when you have been looking forward for months to testing a piece of kit.

The Ice Grips come in a range of styles and can be attached to numerous types of shoes and would suit all pursuits, from a walk to the shops to a hill run.