Well, Saturday afternoon and have just arisen after lying down on my bed for a couple of hours with a splitting headache and am feeling a trifle fragile. Reason for this is that I was driving out this morning, loads of errands to do regarding the kitchen refit, ordering the flooring, picking up paint, new lights and then shopping as well. Driving sedately along on the way home when a lorry rounded a corner to my right and turned in my direction and just as he came alongside me his back right hand tyre exploded into pieces with the most almighty bang. Dust and pieces of tyre ricocheted in all directions, several large pieces hitting my windscreen, causing me to jam on my brakes. The lorry driver reacted amazingly quickly and pulled off the road straight away, fortunately there was a bus stop space just where he stopped with his vehicle listing dangerously to the right. He came straight over to see if I was ok, but no harm done to either me or the car except I was shaking from head to foot. If the tyre had blown as he came round the corner, and not when he was alongside me, I have a sneaky feeling he would have hit me head on. NOT a nice thought.
So after reassuring him all was OK and that, no I was not going to sue him, just one of those things, I went on my way, finished my shopping and came home and then the headache kicked in and I had to lie down. Feel a bit cold and chilly at the moment, can only assume it is a bit of shock so have a woolly jumper on, even though the sun is shining, and a scarf wrapped round my neck. The usual comforting cup of tea to hand as well, though perhaps Carter's Little Liver Pills might be more efficacious.
What was a great comfort when I arrived home was to find that the postman had been and there were three of those lovely padded envelopes awaiting me. One was the biography of Elizabeth Taylor by Nicola Beaumann, courtesy of Persephone and which I am looking forward to reading, a thriller, The Information Officer from the Amazon Vine programme and, to my utter delight as I had sent a cold call email to the publishers, Jane's Fame, how Jane Austen conquered the world by Claire Harman. So that has soothed my trauma somewhat.
And then this evening I will be sitting down and listening to Gotterdamerung from the Met in New York, all five hours of it. Great stuff. Now that really will make me feel better......
