As I mentioned, we went to visit Babybel and her mum and dad on Saturday. Babybel is six months old and growing rapidly. She is sitting up, taking a lively interest in everything and beginning to babble. She also has two teeth, somewhat to her mum’s regret!We had a good day – Wensleydale helped fix the leak and then we sat in the garden playing and gossiping. [As I expected the hoodie I had made was too big but I have started a smaller one.]
The day took a down turn on our way home. It was a public holiday weekend and the start of a school holiday so we had expected the traffic to be bad. However, in the morning we were driving into London and most people were going the other way, so it wasn’t too bad. Coming home around 6 was much better as the traffic had eased off – until on the quietest bit of the journey we were overtaken [just] by a guy in a battered car who clearly was not in control of it.
We were not surprised, a few miles on, to find him in the ditch, facing the wrong way, with power cables draped around the car. He had hit a wooden electricity pole and snapped it about half way up – which suggests the car was in the air at the time. He was slumped in his seat, but moving.
Other people had already stopped and phoned the emergency services, but we did too, as we wanted to make sure the police knew how he had been driving. Fortunately no-one else had been involved.
The ambulance and police came very quickly: according to the policeman who spoke to us the guy was ‘in drink’ [a phrase I have only ever heard policemen use!]. I don’t know how they knew because he wasn’t in a fit state to be breathalysed and the paramedics were being very cautious because of the power cables!
The police took Wensleydale’s name and address and sent us on our way – I haven’t been able to find out how the guy is but the road was closed till the next morning and the residents of the neighbouring village must have been without electricity for most of that time.
So that rather spoiled what had been a good day until then. I just hope we never come any closer to a drunk driver than that! And I have to confess that I don’t feel very sorry for him.
