Alice gets a close shave!

It was still very cold this morning when I woke up and before I could light the fire in my log burner to warm the space up the ashes needed emptying.

It really needed to be emptied a few days ago but as it had been so cold the last two days i hadn't let the fire go out.

I jumped out of bed and quickly got dressed in as many layers as I could find, in fact in had gone to bed with most of those layers still on.

I was still semi conscious when I hauled my winter boots on and stumbled outside to go out to the boot to grab the ash bucket and pan to empty the fire.
I quickly found them and came back inside to do the job.

Chop up some kindling next, being mindful not to chop my finger or thumb like I have done before, the previous time being only a few weeks ago.
Quick look up towards the cooker and the kettles nearly boiling.

The next thing that happened was very bizzare.......

Suddenly there was an loud almighty smash bang wollop!! and my little World was suddenly catapulted forward by about a metre.

The kettle landed on the floor tipping it's contents in my direction, a bag of lentles and a bag of oats fell from the cupboard above the cooker into the flaming hob.

The firelighter I had flaming in my hand and generally many other bits and pieces not held down in the truck suddenly went flying all over the place too.

I quickly realised that something had hit the back of the truck at quite a force so grabbed my boots and ran outside.

The scene was absolute chaos, one car with nobody in it was almost wedged underneath the back of the truck both the front and back end was a write off.

Another car was firmly wedged in the hedge on the other side of the road with the front end a total write off, the airbags had inflated and the screen was badly smashed too.

I called across to the driver that by this time was dazed and getting out of the car "what speed was he doing like 70mph" his reply was that he had "hit a little bit of ice"

I'm dialing 999 on my mobile phone to the police at this point as I could see he was clearly intoxicated, as soon as I had the operator on the line the man just bolted away from me so I gave chase, he was a lot quicker than myself and he managed to reach the corner first.

By the time I had caught up to the corner he had vanished, i knew he couldn't go far because theirs a river one side of the road and a river the other side too.

The police arrived very quickly on the scene and within 1/2 hour they had found him wet and muddy up to his armpits about a mile from the accident, he must have swam across a few rivers in his attempt to get away.

Alice came off lightly with only a smashed back light (she's like a tank) but I've been suffering all day with pain from whiplash after the impact had happened and the shock had worn down a bit.

I had to give a statement to the police and by the time this was done and the smashed up car was taken away by a recovery truck it was late afternoon...

Wow what a day folks.........