Categories: uncategorized
Tags: car
Date: 25 November 2008 17:46:36
After a lovely weekend with friends in Southampton (more about that later this week), I had an unexpectedly traumatic journey home.
I was trundling up the A34 when it slowed to a crawl, and then a stop. After letting 4 fire engines, 3 police cars, 3 ambulances and 4 miscellaneous vehicles with flashing lights go by I figured that I may be sat there for quite a while. Gradually, the cars started turning off their engines and their lights. I was sat in a giant car park. And it was now pitch black. And I needed a wee!
An hour and hald later we started slowly moving. I pulled into the first service station, relieved myself and bought some comfort food from the M&S (Percy Pigs. Mmmmm).
The weather took a turn for the worse (torrential rain, strong winds) but I was making good time and wasn't too worried about getting home. Until the windscreen wipers froze. I pulled over to the hard shoulder (which was a bit scary as I now couldn't see a thing through the front windescreen) and tried to get the wipers to move. They wouldn't.
Within moments of getting out of the car I was soaked to the skin. After several calls to Mr WF (and an awful lot of shouting and bad words), a breakdown service was on its way.
Its actually quite scary being stood in the bushes at the side of a motorway in the dark with raind lashing down. First, there were lorries hurtling beside me. It was very noisy and a little bit terrifying. After a while, the traffic died down. The cars were few and far between and I was working hard not to let my imagination run away with me. So I started to sing to distract myself. Unfortunately, the only song I could think of was 'If you're happy and you know it'. Needless to say, I wasn't clapping my hands!
After over an hour at the side of the motorway, I was rescued. Two and a half hours later, I finally arrived home in the breakdown truck. They had to tow my car because the windscreen wipers were broken.
I've been off work for the last 2 days recovering. But now I have a supply of silver blankets and rain ponchos in the car should it ever happen again (thanks to the lovely highway patrol man).