My Car
Dear Ann,
I love Tuesdays as I have no commitments on that day & I can have a good sleep in if I feel like it. This is what I was looking forward to after the busy weekend at the Farmers Market & the drama with my flat tyre.
When I woke I could see it was a lovely day outside as the sun was trying to peep through the curtains, but I let my body relax in bed for another hour or so, as I felt I needed it. Dr. deMello, at the Akasha Clinic Philip took me to three years ago in LA, taught me well when he told me your body tells you things & you must learn to listen to what it is saying.
I have learnt to do this. I often just sit in my lounge chair & have a cat nap if I feel I need it, which is something I could never do when I was younger. I benefit from this greatly: acquaintances & friends continually tell me how well I look.
Charley was coming out on that particular Tuesday to make a supply of her mango chutney, but phoned to say something had cropped up & she wasn’t able to make it. In view of this I stayed in my comfy bed & didn’t get up until mid morning.
I had a very lazy morning until it came time for me to go up to Micheles for my lunch.
I inherited an awkward garage when moving to Lakelands & my only complaint would be that the garage is too small. It took me some practice to reverse out so that I don’t hit any walls; miss the garden bed; reverse up the rather steep driveway; & avoid hitting the metal fence at the top. There is not much room for failure either driving in or driving out.
I can’t have passengers in the car until I am out in the open. Likewise my shopping has to be placed on the driver’s side of the car to have easy access to it when I drive in.
When we moved here I planted about thirty shrubs around the garden. Over the years this grew to be a nice high hedge around the side & top of the garden facing the road. I liked the hedge, which gave a lot of privacy. During our very hot summer some garden bug attacked the hedge, which made it look very scraggy.
My gardener John & I conversed about this, deciding it would be advantageous to cut it all down to hip level & let it sprout up again good & healthy. I certainly miss my hedge, but feel it will be a good thing in the long run.
Quite often when reversing out of the garage I have turned the car a little too soon & driven up on the concrete ledge bordering the hedge, which has meant that sometimes I scraped greenery along the side of the car. I better add that I didn’t scratch the car in doing this as I would soft pedal.
On this particular Tuesday morning & feeling a little lazy I reversed onto the concrete ledge but with no hedge there I just put my foot down on the accelerator & reversed quickly up the drive. I heard a small scraping noise & when I stepped out of the car, to my sheer horror my car was okay, but completely without the front bumper bar!
I got such a shock & a lass walking down the drive also. We both stood there dumbfounded for a few seconds. On inspection the bumper bar had just the slightest bit of the corner around the stump of what was left of the hedge.
It was the straw that broke the camel’s back after my Sunday episode with the flat tyre & I was very close to tears.
The lass kindly picked it up & put it out of the way while I went inside to phone David. I knew he would not be pleased as he loves vehicles. To damage a vehicle does not in any way endear a Mother to her son!
When I told him what I had done the response was exactly what I expected. It went like this, “David I have just pulled the bumper bar off the front of my car.” I think his teeth were gritted when he replied very promptly to say, “Well then you had better take it to the smash repairs, hadn’t you?”
On occasions like this it isn’t the best time to remind him of all the smashes & cars written off during his teenage years! I felt bad enough as I loved this car as much as I loved the previous one.
I drove it a few streets away (near my home) to Williams Smash Repairs who know me well as being Newcastle’s Pudding Lady. David told me to ask for Kyle & tell him it would be a cash job.
After not having any financial problems two days prior with a flat tyre & broken electronic key ring I thought it was rather ironic that this should have happened. Kyle & Jackie (receptionist) saw me drive in & they were goodness itself, couldn’t do enough for me. Kyle told me I couldn’t drive it. Not because it wasn’t drivable, but because I could be pulled over by the police & charged for driving a vehicle which could harm a pedestrian if hit. Kyle said he was speaking from experience so I left the car with them.
They were in touch with David as he & Kyle & good friends. Both of them could not have helped me more. It was thought that it would be about a week for me to be without my vehicle & goodness knows how much it was going to cost me as Kyle didn’t inform me of the quote for the job.
God Bless him he used what he could of the bumper bar & to save time went & collected the parts himself rather than wait for them to be delivered. They did the job, calling me the very next day with it all complete & looking like nothing had happened to it. They also did the repairs at a much lesser cost than was usual.
I was so deeply grateful not only for this, but for their friendliness & kindness in doing the job so quickly. As they are very much aware of how good my Christmas puddings are, & certainly they were mentioned when I first arrived on their doorstep, the least I could do was to take one of each of the puddings around to them for morning tea or whatever they wanted to use them for.
They were happy to receive the cash payment with a bonus gift as well & I was more than grateful to have my car back so quickly.
It’s no wonder I thank my Maker for all my Blessings every night.
God Bless & Fondest Love. Dawn X O X O