Sandwiched between the good weather and the shops reopening is our “holiday” week. Originally it was going to be spent at Centreparcs but that has been shoved out by 13 months due to the Covid situation. Our employers are keen that we use up some of our leave entitlement and so here we are on our first “staycation”. It looked like it might be a boring day ahead of us but in the end it went with a bang.
First trip out for us was to B&Q, not quite the usual holiday destination I admit. It’s a bit like waking up in Florida and deciding to go to Lowes rather than Magic Kingdom. (Swap for BigMat or Castorama if you want a more European version of the joke!). Worryingly the reason for our visit was to purchase some paint. I’m not sure I like where this might be heading, which was a bit like being in B&Q itself as it was roped off like a maze.
Helen, who is the most law abiding person I know, was horrified at my slipping through a narrow gap to access the tills. I then stood for a good five minutes waiting for her to rejoin me as she navigated the maze and brought me the credit card.
(As a massive aside, kudos to the person at B&Q who recognised the coming of the internet and secured the domain https://www.diy.com/)
Taking a look at the weather we decided that today would be the better day to go and visit my parents, from a good social distance of course. This required a trip across the border into bandit country (Wales) in order to reach them.
There had been some stories in the press about English people driving into Wales and being stopped by the police as the rules are different there and you are supposed to only travel five miles. My parents live in England but the quickest way to reach them is a short (less than five miles honest officer) trip via Wales. As it happened this would turn out to be the least of our worries.
We were literally less than a couple of miles from our destination when we had to stop on a roundabout as the exit was blocked. Unfortunately, the person in the car behind hadn’t seen that I had stopped and so didn’t. I could see in the rear view mirror his speedy approach but it came as a bit of a shock to Helen when the connection came.
I’m not sure if it was the good weather, that we weren’t to blame or that the guy was so upset that I wasn’t as upset as I might have been. It’s a pain to have to deal with insurance companies and it has smashed up the back of our lovely car but, of course, it is nothing in the grand scheme of things. The damage to our car actually doesn’t look too bad (although it will need a new back end) when you consider just how much damage was done to their car. Based on today’s evidence I don’t think I’ll be rushing to buy a Citroen.
We were only delayed by about half an hour and then were on our way again, insurance details duly swapped. Had a nice afternoon sat in the sunshine with my parents before having a thankfully quiet return journey. Let’s hope that the next four days are more uneventful.
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