If there is such a thing as an alternate universe I wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t made it.
I see now that I may be getting ahead of myself, but then that was probably part of the problem in the first place … maybe I should start again.
On Saturday morning the wife landed in Edinburgh airport at c.10.15am, from where I had arranged to pick her up. And so it was I found myself leaving the house at around 9am with a pair of excitable children to go and up-lift my good lady.
Sadly we were not to arrive at the airport on time at all. Instead we had a ‘little’ accident. ‘Little’ in so far as it involved one (which is a very ‘little’ number) car. Unfortunately for the car and the cars occupants - that’s me and the kids - the accident itself wasn’t so ‘little’.
What actually happened, as far as I can recall, is that whilst coming around a gentle rising corner to the right the car began to skid out to the left, I managed to correct this. Unfortunately I must have over corrected as the car then veered off and skidded to the right. I swore.
Having veered off across the other carriageway - thankfully devoid of oncoming traffic - I think that the front passenger side wheel must have caught the kerb … encouraging the rear end of the car to place itself where the front end should have been.
I’m not sure how, but I have good reason to believe that the car became airborne as it started to roll and went through almost 180 degrees before landing on the driver’s side upright / roof. Again, I swore … I think I may have used the ‘F’ word this time.
Having done the whole, “I want to be an aircraft” thing, I think the car must’ve got bored - or maybe just tired - because it then settled itself back down on it’s wheels and rested itself against a tree.
Remarkably, thankfully, and ‘praise be’ for small miracles the only injury incurred was a small bruise on the lads arm … very small, practically non-existent. Aside from general aches and pains that is. It really was remarkable that we walked away from it … well, I carried the kids, but it amounts to the same thing.
Two cars stopped to help, one nice lady contacted the emergency services before leaving. The other car contained an off duty fireman and his partner (?) who let us sit in their car until help arrived and then drove us up the road as directed by the policeman. Big thanks to this couple, who were very reassuring and plied the lad with sweeties!
We ended up with two off-duty fast response paramedics, two ambulances, and two police cars. I don’t mind telling you that I felt like a complete tit, but the emergency services were great. The police secured the car for me - as we couldn’t return to it at that point - and when I realised, halfway to the hospital, that I had sent him off with my only house key the paramedic lady made a couple of calls to sort out somewhere for me to pick it up from.
Having been to A&E and having been discharged we went to sit in the Main Reception to await the mrs and her dad who were coming to fetch us - I fed the kids cake and continued to dish out hugs, cuddles and reassurance. As we sat the two policeman who had taken my keys appeared with my keys and my glasses from the car … totally unexpected and completely unlooked for, they had tracked me down to the hospital canteen to hand back my keys, they hadn’t had to, but they did - what a great pair of guys! But then all the medical and response people were great, really really great.
