An Eventful Journey to Cheltenham!
This afternoon on the way to Cheltenham, the tyre on the caravan blew…..big style! But it blew on one of the narrowest parts of the A46, so we caused quite a traffic jam! (Apologies if you were one of those stuck in the tailbacks!)
It was the right hand tyre so it meant lying in the road to change it – with big lorries going past. I was terrified for Steve.
Then….the jack slipped, and the back stay on the van gave way making it impossible to put the spare tyre on. The jolting from the tyre blowing caused the main battery to fall out, getting smashed to pieces in the process.
The police came (And got an exuberant welcome from me!) but couldn't help apart from directing traffic around us. Thankfully we are signed up to direct line recovery and they had some one come out within the hour. But our real angel in disguise was a gentleman who stopped and attempted to help (Getting his own jack stuck in the process). After the recovery people came and made the caravan safe to tow, he led us to the nearest repair place. What made it funny was the fact that this lovely guy who was crawling under our very unsafe caravan worked for the health and safety people!
Those stuck in the jam, when they went past were very nice – no one was rude to us, and many slowed to ask if we needed anything.
It wasn't until after everything was sorted that it really sunk in how bad it could have been – the policeman seemed pretty surprised we got off so lightly.
Well, we are now here – the back of the van jacked up on lumps of wood, but safe.
Steve is quite stiff from trying to sort everything out, and like me, still shaking from the experience.
I have done my first walk down to the festival office – and it's a long walk from the caravan site…… that's going to be fun then…..I'm back on crutches!
The Walls said,
August 10, 2007 @ 3:11 pm
You’ve got a very BIG GOD O by your side – even on a BUSY ROAD!!