Anyway, yesterday was a little more exciting. It started off with a cycle trip to the supermarket up the road, for essential supplies (beer and crisps, sorry, chips). The woman on the checkout just sat there dreamily scanning my items through, looking into my eyes. She said "Just keep on talking, I could listen to you all day." There's a first, someone who finds the Cockney accent sexy. The problem was she was closer to my dad's age, in fact she must have been in the same neighbourhood.
We got home, and I set about doing boring stuff like my sister's laptop. A couple of hours later, and Doug (my brother in law) had to leave for work for a couple of hours. 30 seconds after he left, I was startled to hear a long screech of tyres, and I thought "pah, Doug's just showing off again, wheel spinning as he pulled away." Then there was a loud bang, in fact that doesn't do it justice, the floor of the house shook. Then there was another violent thud, and another, and another. I realised someone had crashed into something, and when I stepped out into the backgarden it sounded like it was a couple of streets down. We took a mosy out the front, only to see a large Ford 4 wheel drive, an explorer I think, in a rather bad way on next door's front garden. There was a young guy pacing up and down, quite frankly freaking out swearing and shouting. His mate was trying to calm him down. We kept our distance, and then realising what had happened I phoned 911. A few neighbours were now appearing, and when I finished the call I went over to the driver who was now lying on the grass obviously going into shock. He was only about 20, and he was saying he'd swerved to avoid a car that was speeding the other way, and clipped the kerb. I looked at the damage on the car, distance from the kerb that the impact happened, marks of tyres etc on the road, and realised he'd been going a lot faster then the 25 he said. He'd rolled I reckon 3 times, coming to rest against the next door neighbour's classic pickup.
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Now, in the UK, you'll phone for an ambulance, and normally they'll ask what's wrong, they'll triage you over the phone, and send an ambulance when they feel you've waited long enough. Not 2 minutes after I'd phoned them, the paramedics and the fire brigade both pulled up. A couple of minutes after that, a cop pulled up. I was astounded, almost as stunned as the driver in fact. The cop started asking everyone if they knew what happened. When he came to me, he asked if I was the one that called it in, and I said I was. He mentioned the fact I had an accent "not of these parts" (his words) and I told him I was staying with my sister next door. He then said "I suppose you came over for a little excitement. I bet this wasn't what you were expecting!"
Anyway, the long and the short of it was the driver had been racing his mate, and lost control. Someone said to his father (who had now turned up) that he'd been taken to the hospital, to which he replied "They better keep him there because when I get my hands on him...." I think he was mildly unimpressed with his offspring. A tow truck was here within the hour, and everything was cleared after 90 minutes. The only thing to show for the entire event was a couple of marks on the road, a large chuck of turf missing from the verge, and the now broken pickup next door.
The afternoon was spent sitting chatting in the backgarden (I'm now a nice subtle shade of pink) and in the evening I made my famous lasagne. We then relaxed in the garage, where we played table tennis and drank a tad too much beer, finally retiring to bed just about 10. I could get used to this. *sigh*
See you tomorrow.
