Hello White van man......

They are a bit of a legend: the man and it usually is a man in the white van.

Jaguar? Aston Martin? Forget it - if you want to see a vehicle moving quickly look for a Mercedes Sprinter or a Transit in white.

The people who drive these delivery vans are a special breed, almost always on piece work so the more they deliver the more they get paid and the quicker they do their run the sooner they are at home in front of the telly watching footie on sky, reading about the world in the current bun and drinking Carling Black Label.

So anyway today off I went through the vile tempest, taking young D to see the paediatrician. Management had gone off on her own mission to secure a university admission form and had arranged to meet us there.

So there I was in the Pugwat cruising a local narrow local lane when I met him coming the other way.

Forgoing the passing place, white van man just planted the loud pedal and came powering on full pelt. Off the road into the verge I went, into the wet mud went the wheel, the pugwat ground to a halt.

That was me in the technical condition we used to call bolluxed when I was into 4x4. Much water, plentifull mud, no traction.

White van man noted the situation in his mirror then drove on anyway.

I thought some very uncharitable thoughts, contemplated being there next week with a Green Goddess and taking revenge....

Then got out and checked the situation, yup, seriously stuck, was us.

Now of course there are a variety of approaches to being stuck, one very popular one is sit on the loud pedal and sit there with a wheel spinning furiously and uselessly. Generally this is a very good way to make a bad situation tragic.

Gently I reversed the car as far as it would go, then drove forwards. Switching from second where the car applies the torque less savagely to reverse. By gentle rocking I created a bit of a run untill about 20 minutes later by a combination of luck and errrr luck. I had a long enough run to build up enough speed to crash out of the ditch and bounce back on to the road. Leaving the side of the car even more smeared with mud than normal.

Of course I should not really pick on white van man, if you want true insanity look for the milk lorry, these are the drivers the van companies sacked for being too reckless, I reckon they have a contract to turn as much milk into cheese as humanly possible en route to the dairy. These guys drive like they are imortal and have reaction times that would make Jensen Button look as if he was sedated...

Back on track and into hospital, which was good news all round as the pead was very pleased with young D his condition has not deteriorated as she would have expected it to.

Good result then.

Back home and the weather is delivering yet another biblical cloudburst riding on a typhoon tempest.

Thank goodness for lovely log burners.....

R


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