An interesting journey - part 2

Please read the 1st 2 parts to this story first if you haven't already.....

• A scary phone call

• An interesting Journey - Part 1

Only 1 thing for it. I dialled 999 and got the fire brigade on the case. I tried to call Li, but as usual she was blanking me so I stood beside the road and took a couple of pics of the flames licking out from every part of my ex-vehicle.

After about 5 minutes a brown people carrier drew up next to me on the hard shoulder. A bloke was driving it and shouted out of the window if I was OK, and if I needed any help. I told him I'd already called the fire bregade, but he offered to wait with me until they arrived. I got in and we sat and chatted while he put the heating on full to warm me up as the outside temperature was quite chilly. There was snow on the ground. It's nice to know there are some kind people out there still!

After another 10 minutes or so, the fire engine arrived and slowly and methodically they put the flames out. The police arrived, and my kindly stranger went on his way to work. I sat in the back of the police car whilst they were doing some checks on me (good job I had my false identity papers with me!) and then the Motorway Patrol guys arrived and they went to see the state of the car with the police. In the meantime I sat in the Motorway Patrol car and started calling Leaseplan to sort out the recovery details.

After about an hour the recovery vehicle came to scoop the remains of the car from the side of the motorway. The guys had some trouble getting all of it from the hard shoulder because it was burned into the road. I went with them to a secure compound where they locked up the car for evidence. After a cup of tea to warm up, the recovery guy dropped me back home.

It had been an interesting journey!

An interesting journey - part 1

So, as Li said, I was just pootling over the M62 towards Manchester. Unusually I was in the outside lane (!) when a very loud noise started coming from the engine compartment.

Very loud.
NOT GOOD I thought to myself.

I moved into the middle lane, and was signalling to get into the inside lane when the oil light came on. I started looking for somewhere to pull over. The next junction was quite far away and so I was looking for the next roadside phone. I put my hazard lights on.

Next thing I knew was that all of the lights on the dashboard lit up at once, and a message I've never seen before flashed up; 'Engine management system failed'. Something told me that this was bad news! The power failed and so did the brakes, not an ideal situation as I was still in the middle lane and going about 40mph.

A lorry was coming up on my inside, so I let him undertake me and I manage to coast over and get on the hard shoulder.

As I pulled the car to a stop with the handbrake (something I've always wanted to do - eat your heart out Starsky & Hutch), thick white smoke started billowing around my feet. After analysing the situation for about 0.004 of a second, I determined that the situation wasn't improving so I thought I'd better get out of the car (after grabbing the tom-tom, but not the charging cable, or the tom-tom case)

There was loads of smoke coming from under the bonnet but I still had time to get my thinkpad (a brand new one I only got on Thursday) and my ski-jacket (it was very cold) from the boot.

Just as I was walking away from the car, I saw flames start to come out from under the bonnet! This was getting SERIOUSLY BAD!

The story continues here with An interesting Journey - Part 2

A scary phone call

As I was leaving for work this morning I looked at my phone and realised that there was a missed call from Dan. He was off to Macclesfield this morning and frequently calls on his way over the top of the M62 to ask me to do a "traffic watch" to see why the traffic is slow.

The call had come about 15 minutes before so I dialled him up and waited for him to answer.

'Hello hon, I saw you'd called me, everything OK?'

'I'm just sitting in a police car' he said.

At this point I have to admit I had an uncharitable thought with regard to Dan's penchant for travelling at speeds faster than legally authorised!

'What's happened?'

'I'm having a bit of a morning' he said. 'My car is has burned to a crisp'

I pressed my earphones tighter into my ears. I can't have heard right.

'Say that again...?' I replied.

'I'm sitting in a police car at the side of the motorway because my car caught fire' he said.

I HAD heard right. I was in shock! I could hardly believe what he was saying.

After having made sure he was OK - my priorities reasserted themselves. The Blog! So, my next question was

'Did you get any pictures?'

Needless to say - here they are

The story continues here with An interesting Journey Part 1

Piggalino

Well Happy New Year!

By way of starting the new year in the way we'd like it to continue, we went to the farm at Yorkshire Meats to pick up our little pig.

"What pig?" I'm sure you're asking. Well, 6 months ago we put a deposit down on a pig at the farm. This week we were told that the pig was going to the abattoir and the meat would be ready at the weekend.

So, off we went to the farm - just outside of York - and met Duncan, who was expecting us. He initially took us to meet the 3.5 month old pigs out in the field.

They came racing out to meat us and as we stepped in to the field they were snuffling around our legs and leaving little nose prints on our jeans! They were SO cute, but the most surprising thing about them was that they were ORANGE! No pink here, or at least not much. They were all shades from a pale peach to a dark orange!!! The breed is called the Oxford Sandy and Black. The breed description reads....

• Medium to large pig
• Lop or semi-lop ears
• White blaze, feet and tassel are characteristic
• Head moderately long with a slightly dished muzzle
• A good sandy coat (ranging from pale sandy to rust) with random black patches

Dan made a particular friend (as you can tell by the close-up!) as he was knelt in amongst the little creatures. They were all snuffling around him and eating his shoe laces! Very cute!
So then we went to have a look at the 2 sows. Both of them had had piglets in the last month. They were adorable!!!

The photo doesn't really do them justice as the warming lamp was making the light a bit wierd in the pen. Here are pics of another of the sets of piglets from the website --> piglets. I wanted to nick one and put it in my bag....I liked the little ginger ones the best!

An interesting evening

Last night I went out with Marina & Vanora (Dan's sisters) and another couple of friends, Michelle and Suze. Lovely evening; nice dinner in Fellicinis in Leeds (definitely recommend the Chicken & Mushroom Penne, and the Haddock Risotto. Yum). We then went on for a swift glass of Champers in the champagne bar in the Electric Press near Millennium Square.

Unfortunately Harry, Vanora's son, wasn't well, and I wasn't planning on being out all night, so after an early start (dinner at 6) at about 8:15 we decided to head home.

We got into the car and headed off round the dreaded Leeds Loop. I hate it. For those of you who don't know, it's a one-way system round the city centre which manages to confuse me every time I get on it. It's like a massive spinning wheel which flings me off in random directions and I never know where I am. So, off we go round the loop. I missed the 1st opportunity to get to the motorway (even with Vanora's expert guidance) and ended up following it round a bit further. We get to the bottom of Lady Lane, at the lights just before the roundabout with Eastgate (Theatres in front of you) and the car....just.....stopped.

OMG the petrol light was on, but the needle was still on about a quarter, and according to the mileage, I still had over 30 miles in the tank.

There was no doubting though, the car had actually run out of petrol. Sh*t!

After a bit of initial panic, we noticed a side road WITH A PARKING SPACE about 50 yards away, and after waiting for a gap in the traffic (we were on the Leeds Loop remember) with a bit of serious pushing from Vanora managing to maintain her glamorous look in her 6 inch heels, and me sort of scootering along with one leg in and one out, we managed to park it in a proper space. Please note: this actually involved reversing a bit as well; no mean feat.

We then realised that we were just across the road from the police station. Great, we thought, we'll go and ask them for directions to the nearest petrol station. Unfortunately the enquiries office closed at 8pm, but we did spot a couple of 'cycle' officers returning to the station and so we accosted them for info.

They pointed out that Regent street was about the nearest. 10 minutes walk. Eeeek in our heels!
We tried at the taxi rank and were rejected by the taxi driver. Miserable man. So off we trekked. It wasn't so far, but did hurt our feet alot!

I got to the checkout with my little petrol canister, and started digging around for my purse. Where was my purse? Damn, in the panic at the car, I'd actually managed to leave it on the back seat. Thank God Vanora was there. She saved the day with a spare tenner in her purse. I'd been trying to persuade her to get home to poorly Harry in a taxi. OMG, imagine if she'd not been there?

When we got back to the car and had filled the tank from the petrol carrier, we were just about to get back in the car. "Are you ready?" Vanora looked at me over the roof of the car from the passenger side - and promptly disappeared! I raced round to the other side of the car, only to find her, one foot in the footwell, and the other down the very high kerb, collapsed on the pavement, laughing hysterically! The (now very painful) 6'' heels, dodgy parking near a high kerb and a dark street had combined to make her miss her footing when getting into the car. She couldn't move for laughing and I was laughing too much to help her get up!

I'm dreading it if they've caught us on CCTV they'd have put us on "Booze Britain - Leeds"

Ooops!

Well the tree is up - pics to follow - but have had minor incident with it today!

In previous years, we've always lined the tree bucket with some bin liners before putting in the tree and the stones, and then we fill it with water. It just keeps the tree fresh especially when we put it up the 1st week in December, and stops it drying out.

So, this morning I thought, 'better get the water in' and so I got a jug and very carefully poured the water in, making sure I got it into the middle.

Next thing I hear is a shout from Dan...'Li, there's water all over the floor in here' and I went running in to see all the water leaking out across the room. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

Several bath towels and tea towels later there was still quite alot of liquid coming out and we started getting concerned for the laminate flooring. So I came up with an idea.....we'd raise up the bucket onto some tupperwear boxes to see how much water was coming out.

With the help of Miles, Dan's lovely friend who had been visiting us, the 3 of us managed to get the bucket raised up off the floor which meant we were able to get some cloths in underneath.

I've been swapping the cloths over every half an hour or so to make sure the floor isn't kept wet for a long piece of time and at 8pm it's just about stopped dripping! I reckon another 24 hours and there'll be no more water to leak out.

Damn! I wish I'd checked the water-tightness of the bin-liners before loading the tree and stones in. Boooooooo!

Dan's Lost it

OMG! Dan's regressed over 20 years! He's watching 'Short Circuit' and he KNOWS ALL THE WORDS and it's looking like he thinks he is JohnnyNo5.

Actually, now I think about it, there IS somewhat of a resemblance! What do you think?


I'll leave you to decide!

NEED INPUT!

Coincidence #3

I suppose that being called Rossi & having an Italian restaurant in a small village makes it reasonably likely the people would know *us* or at least Mum and Dad if they knew the area at all, and so there have been quite a lot of this type of coincidences in my life. The 'oh you know my mum and dad' type thing. That, coupled with the fact that I travel a lot and talk to most people, so i've always taken them a bit as 'well they happen'.

This next one, however was just completely and utterly madly coincidental. It starts off as not mine but in several coincidental twists, I was coincidenced in at the last minute!

It was a weekend in the summer. Dad's birthday, in fact, and myself and my friend Scotty were up home for the weekend.

Scotty & I had spoken many time about the times when he, as a young child, had been sent on holiday to a parish not too far from Bromborough, as part of an exchange holiday between the parishes. So, given that we were there...and Dad's party arrangements were under control...we headed off in search of this parish.

I just need to point out that it was long enough time ago that we DIDN'T google it beforehand! So actually we had to drive around a bit to find the church. We did find it after asking at a local newsagents!

So, we rocked up at the presbytery, knocked on the door, and when the priest answered, we said "father, we know this is a strange request, but do you know anything about the exchange holiday with St Agnes's parish?"

"Oh" he said "they're about to arrive in an hour"

what?

to cut a very long story short, the parish exchange was still going on, some 20 years later, and the children were due to arrive WITHIN THE HOUR of us going to that parish. How was this possible?

We were invited into the parish hall to wait for the arrival of the bus with the children on it. Quite a few local families were already there, waiting for them. And of course so were the family that had taken in Scotty, all those years ago. It was a lovely reunion!

This family were hosting one of the adults accompanying the group; Scotty's mate Tucker! A childhood friend, who used to come on this trip as well and who now was part of the organising team from St Agnes'. You can imagine his surprise getting off the bus to see Scotty there waiting for him!

The host couple (I can't remember their name) had us back to their house for a cup of tea and a biscuit, whilst Scotty and Tucker went down memory lane and chatted about the good times they'd had on holiday there. It was lovely!

Inevitably the conversation moved on to other subjects, and this is where my conincidencing started. Firstly the gentleman's sister was a nun. Nothing too strange, apart from the fact that I knew her as she was an FCJ sister - and lived at my school!

Next thing that was weird was we were talking about a lucky escape the family had had where a car had crashed through their lounge wall - it had been stolen by joyriders, and they'd missed the turn outside the house and crashed stright through the fence and into their lounge. It was a lucky escape because the family had just got up and walked into the back room.

Whilst we were sympathising with them, & marvelling at their lucky escape, I had a flash of memory. I was sure this story sounded familar to me......so I asked if they knew the person whose car it was....was he an italian....did he own the local restaurant. YES, they said! Some friends of mum and dad's who live in this area, had had their car stolen, and It had been crashed into someone's house by joyriders......It was the same people. How bizarre.

During the conversation (which went on for several hours) there were so many coincidences, that Scotty and I had to stop & write it all down afterwards, and I can't actually remember all the nuances of detail which linked us all together!

Anyway, it was a mega day of them and we were blown away!

Italy

We're just back from a little trip to Forli to see the Rossi clan. We flew out on Thursday morning with KLM via Amsterdan to Bologna.

Now, it's quite an unusual thing to go and stay with friends instead of family but for quite a few years, this is what we have been doing so as not to put my family out too much. All of them would, of course, turn themselves upside down for us, we know that, but actually it makes us a little bit uncomfortable to do it. Instead we've been staying with Anna, our friend of many years! She originally came to us when she was 19 and I was about 7. Her mum and my Nonna went to the same church, and her mum thought it'd be good for her English to come and stay with an English family! 30 plus years later, she speaks better English than the rest of us and we are all still firm friends!

Anyway, her and her other half, Wainer, have recently bought the flat above hers & knocked the 2 together! It's AMAZING, and, of course, it means there's LOADS of space - double what was there before of course, so that's where we stayed.

Coincidence #2

Well I can't claim this one for my own. It really belongs to our Jane...

A few years ago, when the shop was still open, a couple of Mum's customers came in one day all excited. 

''You'll never guess what happened to us on holiday'' they said. Needless to say, Mum asked them to go on...

They were in Madrid, walking along the street smoking, when they were asked for a light by a young Spanish man.

He spoke quite good english and so they chatted for a bit. 

''Where are you from?'' he asked

''The Wirral'' they replied.

"I don't know it," he said, "but i do have friends in Bromborough - have you heard of it?"

They were laughing and explained that not only was Bromborough ON the Wirral, but that's where they were from. 

"Oh," he said. "in that case do you know my friend Jane? Her family have an Italian restaurant."

Well you can only imagine their response!

Turns out it was Miguel, a friend of Jane's who she'd met when living in Valencia in 1992 and (correct me if i'm wrong Janey) even shared a flat with for a few months.  

Totally random. Total coincidence!