My Poor Car

Tuesday nights is young George's night for martial arts up in the hills above Eskdalemuir. He gets up there by going to a friend's house for his dinner and they all go to the remote village hall in the hills for jujitsu. The Man of the Place and I take turns to collect him about 9 pm.

There is always a delightful selection of wildlife to be seen when making this little trip. Last week there was a beautiful Tawny Owl sitting in the road as I was going to the little hall. I carefully drove around the bird as it was very much alive and looking around. It was odd that the owl didn't fly off as my car approached. Perhaps it had been hit by another car and was stunned or was ill. The owl was still there on my return journey (there probably hadn't been any other cars on the road). I stopped the car and got out. I thought that if the bird was injured, I might be able to get it to somebody who could help. The owl saw me walking toward him and flew off. I love owls and I was glad that George got to see it and glad that the bird was okay.

At around 10 last night, I got a phone call to say that my guys were on that quiet bit of country road not far from where George and I had seen the owl the week before. I was surprised that they got a phone signal out there. The reason for the call was that they had two flat tyres. There must have been a sharp stone or a bad pothole as both front and rear wheels on the driver's side were gone.

It took me a minute to figure it out, but it was MY car that had the two flat tyres. I asked my darling husband NOT to continue to drive the car as it would ruin the wheels. I grabbed the keys to the other (his) car and set out into the night to collect them. I discovered the reason he had taken my car as soon asI got in. One of his headlamps was out and needed to be replaced.

It took me about 20 minutes to get there. I wish I could say that I was more gracious about my car's damage, but I can't. By the time everybody was home safe there was no point calling the breakdown service. There wasn't a tyre place open at that hour. It was best just to go to bed and I'd ring in the morning.

Which is what I did.

Normally, one meets the breakdown service next to the car but there was no way they were going to find the car without my help. The road was too small and not even on most systems. The lovely breakdown guy, Ian picked me up at the house at about 9 on Wednesday morning and we set out to see about my car.
When we were almost there, Ian started to laugh and admitted that it was a good thing that he had collected me to show him where the car was located as he would have never found it without me. The GPS system that this breakdown service uses showed that we weren't even on a road. It showed the river Esk that was just down the embankment but not the road.

We were patently on a road, okay it was a small road with lumps and potholes but it was a paved road. Moments later we were at my car. It was resting safely in a passing place on this narrow country road.Here is my poor car
Now the car is being lifted onto the breakdown service truck. You can see that it was a beautiful morning.All strapped up and ready to go.

My car and I were driven into Carlisle where the lovely young men at Kwik-fit put two new tyres on the car. I then drove the car through a car wash and headed north to try and salvage what was left of my working day.