A little light relief-mishaps

I have been laughing with friends on twitter about some of the scrapes I have got myself into over the years and as the world is such a serious place at the moment I thought a little humour was in order, so sit back and enjoy (hopefully) a few laughs,mainly at my expense!

I was reminded the other day of one of the incidents that occurred in the snow many years back. I had only been driving for a very short time and had not long passed my test. Being a bit braver than I felt I assured my mum I was perfectly capable of taking her to the next town in the heavy snowfall to look around the shops, off we set in my very first car which was a little old mini, hand painted green! Oh I was so proud of that car even though it actually spent more time off the road being repaired than on it.
We got to the town safely enough, parked up and wandered round the shops, so far so good. Then I got a little too confident and took mum for a drive around some of the back streets, all went well until I turned a corner and found myself at the top of the biggest hill I had ever seen. The hill was covered in snow, you know the compacted kind of snow that looks very slippery? Well that's what faced me, and at the bottom of the hill were the shops we had previously walked around but the shop at the very bottom had a huge pane of glass (it's window) and it was right in line with where I would end up if I drove my car down the scary hill. I can't remember now why I couldn't just turn around and go back the way I had come but for whatever reason there was no other option open to me but to drive down this hill. I already had visions of me sliding, being unable to stop and taking out that huge pane of glass and I'm not ashamed to say I was terrified. So much so that I just knew I couldn't attempt it, I took the cowards way out, phoned hubby, who luckily was home that day and made him drive the half hour to find me, leave his car at the top and drive mine down the hill and then walk back up for his.
Needless to say I was the butt of many jokes for a long time afterwards.

This brought to mind another snow 'incident' that we still laugh about now.
We were on our way back from somewhere, hubby and kids in the car and I was again doing the driving. Heavy snow lay on the ground covering everything and making driving conditions hard as in the dark nothing was easily distinguishable.
We were making good but slow progress towards home when hubby stated he needed a wee, as we still had some way to go he said he couldn't wait and insisted I pull over at the next lay-by, we were in the middle of nowhere and although the roads were reasonable the fields etc either side of the road were a blanket of White. But next lay-by we came upon I pulled in, the place was deserted and very quiet, the field had trees not too far from the lay-by so hubby stepped out of the warm car, took a step towards the trees and completely disappeared!
I mean vanished, no sign of him at all. The girls in the back all shouted at the same time and we all jumped out of the car....
Next to the lay-by between the surface of the road and the field was a ditch, completely covered by soft White snow and in the ditch up to his shoulders in snow was hubby!

And lastly, for this blog anyway let's stick with the motoring theme. My sense of direction is non existent, I can get lost in my own home town, that's how bad I am.
My grandparents used to live in Edgware,Middx about an hours drive from me, we drove it many times when the girls were small and when the M25 opened the stretch up to South Mimms it became even easier to get to.
So one of the first trips I wanted to do when I passed my driving test was take the girls to see my grandparents on my own. Off I set, only had the two older girls then, the youngest was not yet born. Got to grandparents, no problems at all, nice easy drive. Spent a lovely few hours there and then nan suggested I head for home whilst it was still light as I hadn't been driving long.
We set off home at 3pm, would be home easily around 4ish, wouldn't we?
Well yes we would have except I missed the right hander on the roundabout that would have taken me back onto the M25 and home! It took me a bit longer on the A1 before I realised I had missed my turn off and then using my female logic I decided I would just keep going until I saw a place name I recognised and head for that. The A1 became the M1 and on I went, I didn't recognise all the names I was passing, they didn't mean anything to me so on I continued. The girls by now had got beyond the asking where they were stage and had fallen asleep, it had also got dark, I had been on this motorway for hours!
I tried hard to stay calm, did I have enough petrol? Yes I was ok for now, was I ever going to see something I could head for I recognised? It was looking less and less hopeful. After about 3 hours on this road I made the decision to pull off at the next exit no matter where it went and that's just what I did.
Unfortunately instead of it taking me to a town or somewhere I could have asked for directions I now found myself on a windy country road, no signposts, no shops, no garages, nothing!
Aha....a phone box! I pulled over and in a highly emotional state phoned hubby....he said my first words were 'where am I? And how can I get home?'
He obviously didn't have a clue where I was so asked the last thing I had noticed on the motorway 'Huntingdon' I said. ' my god your nearly at Cambridge' he replied. I had no choice but to go back on the motorway and head for Huntingdon where I could pick up the M11 back to Harlow.
I eventually got home around 9.30, apparently my nan had been phoning every half hour to see if I was home yet, my parents were also phoning and hubby was ready to come out and find me. The girls slept through it and I was none the worse for wear really but a journey that should have taken me an hour took over 6 and I have not lived that down to this day.




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