When life hands you lemons...

...hand them back and say "no thank you" or slice 'em up and shove 'em in your G&T.  Personally, I prefer the latter option, don't you?

So my last blog post was a guest post birth story which was a pretty nice post I think.  Unfortunately, this post isn't going to be the same and I may droan on and I may repeate myself a few times and hell I may even swear a few times but do you know what?  That's what my blog is for.  It's about me getting my thoughts out there.  So bear with me while I have a very self indulgent WHINGE and MOAN.

Yesterday was pretty shitty by all accounts.  In fact it was REALLY shitty.  On the scale of 0 to shitty it was horrendously shitty.  We had a car accident on our way to nusery.  I feel stupidly bad because it was my fault.  I wasn't driving and I didn't distract anyones attention from the road but I still feel like it was my fault.  We'll rewind shall we?  Mr L works shifts and this particular shift sees him finishing at 5:30AM and going back into work at 12:00 noon the next day.  On days like this, I usually catch the bus.  One thing or another happened and I had to ask Mr L to get up and do the nusery and work run (I can't drive).  He did, without moaning despite very little sleep bless him.

We were tootling up completely unaware when all of a sudden...we were the scene of an accident.  We were turning a bad bed to go up hill, the other driver was coming down hill and over shot the corner.  The cars hit and that was that.  Thankfully no one was hurt.  Alfie was slightly upset and to be honest I think seeing me upset made him worse.  The shock was awful.  Car accidents are my biggest fear which is probably one of the reasons I keep neglecting my driving lessons and what not.  I saw the state of the cars and I was a mess.  I held Alfie as my legs went to jelly and I slumped to the floor.  I probably sound really dramatic here but it really did shake me up.  The other car had a "witness" - of course he didn't but he asked the car who was following us and he said yes.  The position of our car meant that he couldn't possibly have seen everything.  In hindsight I wish we had taken photos because you can clearly see that the mini that we crashed with - was on OUR side of the road.  If we'd have hit him, surely being the bigger car (Golf Estate) we would have pushed him towards his own side?  Coming down the hill he was doing more than 30MPH.  But that's by the by.

Thankfully some kind stranger came to see if Alfie and I were OK as the man in the other car walked past us to take photographs which I thought rather rude.  He never once asked if we were OK.  The stranger, called Andy took me and Alfie to nursery away from the scene.  I was picked up from nursery and brought to work by my team leader where I had plenty of hot sweet coffees.  I was quite teary most of the day because of the shock but I got over it once home time came and I picked my boy up from nusery.  Mr L being the hard worker he was went to work on 2 hours sleep and did a full shift.  He got a lift from a colleague. 

It looks like our car is written off so we aren't entitled to a courtesy car, we can't afford a hire car and with no funds to buy a new car we are well and truly stuffed.  I catch the bus on occassion to and from nusery but full time busses isn't going to be possible.  The bus to work is a 50 minute wait after I drop Alfie at nusery; it is then a good 30 minute bus ride and another 20-30 minute walk to work meaning I would be at least an hour late in.  To get to nusery on time for pick up I'd need to leave work at 4pm to catch the right bus.  It's just not going to happen.  Yes people will be kind and offer lifts when they can but it's not really fair to depend on them so much.  Mr L works shifts with no colleagues that live near us (in the sticks) so there will be times when he is going to struggle to get to work.  So we are royally screwed without our car.

I am really at a loss at what we can do and I can't see a way forward.  Ofcourse I'm thankful the accident wasn't worse but it doesn't help me worrying about how we are going to cope now.  We are waiting official confirmation of the car inspection (write off or repairable) but the car was a MK3 Golf - worth nothing so doubtful they would repair such massive damage.  Then we have to wait for the insurance to pay out what very little they are willing to which knowing insurance companies could take a long time. 

We're not having much luck!