Car Mayhem May 17

May has been a month of cars for me, taking significant chunks of my weekend. I was involved in the perimeters of an accident in January, when a transporter lorry swerved and then hit the central reservation tipping its load of vehicles across the central reservation as I was passing. A shocking experience as I drove towards the vehicles tipping towards me as the lorry drew up beside me. Definitely feel I was very lucky and lost a life that day!

My car was splattered with debris damaging every part of the car except the passenger front and back door and boot door. Unfortunately the initial paint repairs were terrible with obvious runs in the paintwork, over spray of paint and areas of paintwork where the paint was obviously thinned, hence needed to be re-done. The ‘up-side’ of the poor quality of the initial paint repair was fantastic as I was handed back a beautifully finished car, as the whole car had been resprayed and was finished to a highly polished level, looked like new. The perfect time to sell as it would never look that good again. 

We walked in to the Ford car dealer and came out (eventually!) with a Ford Fiesta but this is an ‘ST Black Special Edition’, being 1L engine with 140 horsepower in black and red, brand new, 17 plate with 10 miles on the clock. What this means is my car is what I recognise as a Fiesta but much more sporty and nippy, Foot down and I go. Love it and it’s comfortable. My silver-lining has seen me good.

Jerry celebrated his next birthday. I suggested a nice leisurely lunch but he wanted to go to his regular haunt for breakfast which turned into a ‘very big boy breakfast’ presented with a candle. He loved it and then lifting our rounded bodies, we were off for an afternoon jaunt to Blickling Hall woods. Our purpose to enjoy one of the beauties of spring – to absorb both visually and sensually the perfume of bluebells as the flowers blanketed the old woods. A truly wonderful cloud of spring haze to walk through and capture, we really enjoyed an afternoon out, between school runs.

Dylan has had his school sports day watched by grandparents and a participating dad!! Dylan very proudly came second in two races and third in another two races, a mixture of running, the sack race, balance race, obstacle race etc. Then I was presented with another third sticker to hear Jerry had been cajoled into entering the dad race with the whole experienced captured for me to share – Poor Jerry!

Things have moved on well with my employment position too. All the energy put into worrying about my job, firstly regarding the government changes in tax profiles then secondly regarding the indifference I felt towards my position in Slough. On a Thursday late afternoon an advert winged itself to me which was right up my street. A position in Patient Flow at Bexley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). It took a tense week to confirm I was successful, now 4 weeks I’m getting on well.

I continue to travel weekly to the end of the M11, go left on to M25 and over the QE2 Dartford Bridge then immediately left onto A2 with a slow cruise to Bexleyheath. I travel around four hospital

• The key hospital being Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital in Lewisham.
• Then Queen Mary Hospital in Sidcup
• Durant Valley Hospital in Dartford
• Finally Princess Royal University Hospital in Orpington. 

The next challenging worry in taking this position to date has been in finding somewhere to stay. A good old fashioned Bed & Breakfast, like I was use to with the lovely Thelma and George in Sussex, is incredibly hard to come by. The new style B&B. in the cities. is staying in someone’s ‘spare’ room, when the expectation is you share the home owners bathroom, share space in their fridge. This has not been a particularly pleasurable experience and an extremely frustrating process, spending too much time trying to locate potential accommodation which then was not available or was cancelled. I have had a couple of really lovely hospitable and easy places to be but I also have had the experience of an awful place to stay.

In all honesty, I wasn’t sure about this place, called ‘Love & Peace’ but became a bit desperate to get something booked, reviews were OK with the odd dodgy one but not enough to be overly concerned at my need to book. At this point I am in my first week of my lovely new car! I entered a social-housing estate of blocks of four story flats and my heart sank as I had to leave my new pride and joy on the side of the road and weave my way through pathways to find the flat I was staying. I found myself in a small box room with an enormous telly run by Amazon Fire, completely useless as the connection was poor. The impression I surmised as I walked through the flat was of clean but grotty with poor décor, being told there was other people staying as well in the neighbouring room. My experience got worse when I crossed the landing to the bathroom to find a hole where the handle should be with no lock on the inside of the door – horrified and panic overwhelmed me. I started packing my bags and called local hotels but nothing immediately available. Even considered to sleep in my car but didn’t know how to deal with needing the toilet. A phone call back to Jerry I calmed down and talked through how to deal with the bathroom matter, taking my suitcase with me and ramming it between the toilet and the door. Back in my room I called home and shared I had survived the unsatisfactory experience but could cope with one night sleep. The next morning when I went to the fridge I had my next shock realising the homeowner actually lived in her kitchen as I could hear her still in bed behind a curtained-off area. Horrifying, couldn’t get out of there quick enough.

I‘m very pleased to say I am staying in a spare room with an experienced landlady and her adult family on a short term lease arrangement. I have a lock on my bedroom door, a lock on the bathroom and my own fridge, plus less than a mile from my work base so I am able to walk to work on some occasions. Perfect arrangement and feel comfortable there, thankfully!

To finish Milo along with his school mates marked the end of year 13 going into his A level exams in June with a celebration in which all year 13’s dressed up in costume on the last day of school. We had no idea what he was planning until he presented himself in an all-in-one reindeer outfit with a well-padded head. He looked very funny but suffered as paraded around school and town in his full costume on one of the hottest days of the year. They all had a memorable day together but Milo suffered with heat-exhaustion by the end of the day and went straight to bed – don’t think he thought that one through!