.... random rants and rambles. no agenda. yet.

Because I am 32 today, and because we fancied some peace, C and I decided to spend a quiet weekend in the Lakes last weekend. The weekend was lovely, but not always peaceful...

On Saturday, we were driving along a winding country road behind a silver Nissan Micra [the only reason I know what kind of car it was is because my friend G has one, and the only reason I am mentioning what kind of car it was is because if I don't, people will ask me... OK!?]. All was fine for a while, until we noticed the Nissan was swerving a bit from side to side, and was driving rather too close to the centre of the road, so C, who was driving, kept a safe distance behind. It was quite worrying, but we didn't expect anything to happen.

But, it did (and I feel scared even typing this out, but I feel I have to as it might make me feel better).

All of a sudden, the Nissan zoomed over to the other side of the road - WHAT THE HELL?! - hit a wall, drove up a verge - THIS WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPENING! - flew right up into the air - THIS ONLY HAPPENS IN FILMS! AM I IN A FILM? - and - OH MY GOD - did a back flip, twirling around, then did a kind of bounce and landed on its side.

Apparently, I screamed; "OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"

C steered our car past the Nissan-Micra-on-its-side and onto the verge on the other side of the road and looked at me red faced, in blind panic. "YOUR PHONE! GET YOUR PHONE! CALL 999!" she said, seemingly forgetting I was Deaf for a few seconds. We got out of the car, and while I was locking it, C (who is a qualified First Aider, it must be said) ran over to the crashed car. By the time I had turned round, I was absolutely amazed to see that a youngish man was standing up inside the wreckage, with his head and shoulders poking through one of the front windows. Somehow, he managed to climb out, and while he was doing so, C The Hero helped three other twentysomethings to climb through the space that used to be the back window.

Even more amazingly, they only had small injuries!! The driver and the front passenger were OK, with only cuts on their fingers, while the girl who was sitting in the back had hurt her shoulder, and the man sitting next to her had a cut knee and blood pouring down his forehead, but he wasn't too bad.

[The same cannot be said about the car, which was a complete write off, with smashed windows and dents everywhere. One of the front wheels was blown and the bit of metal above it was all mangled, and, strangely, looked like it was made of ribbons. I couldn't stop staring at it in disbelief. All of us stared at it, in fact.]

More importantly, I was soooooooooo relieved that they weren't dead. Imagine that. I really tried so hard not to cry; it would have been a bit weird if I had, expecially as all of the people who were actually in the car were surprisingly calm... presumably in shock.

Anyway, I didn't cry, and amongst all the chaos, some kind of system formed. Another First Aider joined C The Hero and helped to stop the worst-injured man from passing out, and talked to him and kept him calm and warm, while people from a nearby house fetched water and kitchen towel roll and a broom to sweep up all the bits of broken glass and things. Some more people directed the traffic - because traffic jams had formed on both sides of the road by now - and tried to phone 999. It was difficult to phone at first because we were in the middle of nowhere and there wasn't a signal, but I think someone walked down the road and phoned from a phone box.

While we waited, I was overcome by a strong sense of teamwork; it was weird. Here we were, about 10 random people who had just happened to be driving past at the time, suddenly all being nice to each other and looking worried and saying "How long do you think the ambulance will be?" and things like that. One glamorous older woman wearing huge film-star sunglasses got excited every time a motorbike went past, thinking it was a cop or some other kind of emergency-type person. She saw me watching her flap her hands around importantly and said - as if it was a guilty secret - "I always wanted to be a policewoman, you know!" and winked. Two or three others also said they'd always wanted to be police..!

Anyway, the emergency services - two cop cars, two ambulances and a doctor - eventually did arrive, and we all went away.

I don't think the driver was drunk or anything like that, I think he was just crap at driving. He already had a few points on his licence, I think. One thing is certain, however; the airbags in the car saved the two people in the front, and seatbelts meant that they all only had small injuries, despite being thrown in the air, twirling around and bouncing all over the road.

So: always wear your seatbelt.

And yes, it could have been a lot worse, but I don't want to think about that right now.

In other, less dramatic, news, we managed to walk about 40,000 steps (a bit more than 15 miles) each over the weekend. It would have been more if the above hadn't happened... we were on our way for a walk at the time, and afterwards we decided we wanted to go to the pub instead(!)

So, please wear your seatbelt.