An Alarm , A Lesson and Luck

On grounds of good behaviour (or possibly because I was actually considered well enough) I was released from hospital yesterday.

I have to return to hospital on 11 April for what I hope will be the last visit in this 7 month 'episode'. So I decided to undertake the 8+ hour journey home today to re-charge my batteries. As always I left a good margin for unexpected happenings. It was a very good thing that I did.

It's also very fortunate for me, the Volvo and possibly other people, that I had fitted tyre pressure warning devices. As I was about 12 miles from Perth the alarm went off - my offside front tyre had suddenly lost significant pressure. I could see no obvious nail or problem so re-inflated the tyre and drove, albeit fairly gingerly, to Perth and found a helpful private tyre supplier. On the inside wall of the offside front tyre (ie where it could not be seen) was a huge blister about to blow out. Which could have caused loss of control of the vehicle at 70 mph.

Replacing one tyre means the other on the same axle has to be replaced too. That was very fortunate because there was a cut of over 12" in the circumference of the tread of the nearside tyre (which looked like it had been deliberately cut with a Stanley knife).

An hour later I was on my way with two new front tyres having avoided what could have been a fairly catastrophic morning.

I caught the ferry and I'm home. I shall sleep tonight.

Lesson:

Had I not had the alarm which told me the tyre was deflating after it had lost 5 psi and bearing in mind I had been driving for over an hour on 70mph roads a blow-out could have proved fatal to me and anyone else caught up if the car had become out of control. I reckon the cost of that tyre warning system was possibly the best value for money I've had for a long time.

Sometime One Just Gets Lucky

I was sending a text standing on a friend's doorstep because the cellphone signal was very poor in the house.  Something fell between my nose and the phone (without touching either!).  I looked up to see a bird fly off the gutter.  Now that's what I call being lucky.

Thankful Thursday

If you have wellington boots (wellies - which I understand are gumboots to those of you on the other side of the pond) for gardening and so on which have steel toe-caps then why would you wear your walking wellies (which don't) when doing the garden?  The answer in my case was because they are all lined up and I just picked the first pair that came to hand.  After all there's nothing dangerous in gardening is there?  So when I accidentally stuck the tine of the gardening fork right through the top of the boot and into the sole (I was using one hand and pulling out weeds with the other) it did occur to me that perhaps I should have given the matter more though before rather than after the event.  As it was the first thing that went through my mind after wondering why I'd been so silly was whether my tetanus booster was up to date (it's expired).  It was only then that I realised that the tine had gone straight between two of my toes.

You don't have to guess for what I am thankful today!