Sunday, August 29, 2010

Goodbye Trusty Steed....

Yesterday, Ruth and I headed off to my old stomping ground - Vanderbijlpark. Stonehaven on the Vaal to be precise, to see Just Jinjer, aKing and Prime Circle. Three well known South African bands.

The concert was excellent as it is such a good intimate venue, but more on that in an upcoming blog.

On the way home, we stopped at a toll-gate, paid our fee and set off on our merry way again. Ruth was driving and I was busy putting my garage card back in my wallet after paying the toll fee. About 900m from the tollgate, I heard Ruth scream and the car then entered into a skid.

Ruth had swerved to avoid a stray dog on the highway. We then lost control of the car and it skidded sideways onto the middle verge, ending up facing back to the tollgate.
During our skid, we connected with the gutter that runs down the middle of the grass verge. This ripped the front left wheel off and then we preceded to roll over. All I can remember is shouting 'Ruth', 'Ruth', and then grabbing her and pulling her towards me. The roll itself was quite frightening as it was just a mass of dust and broken glass. The feeling of being flipped upside down is very disconcerting to say the least! Fortunately we only rolled once and landed back on the wheels.
All went quiet for a while, after which I shouted, "Fuck, we just rolled", to which Ruth replied, 'I know!"........
We got out of the car and checked each other out. To our disbelief, neither of us we injured, apart from a small but deep cut on my left had pinkie finger....
Luckily I found my cellphone, which lay damaged on the back seat, clipped it back together and it came back to life. I promptly phone a good friend of mine, who incidentally was with us with his family at Stonehaven and asked him to pick us up. I think he got quite a surprise when he saw us and that we were both still in once piece!!
Lordy, were we fortunate. I know a few people who have rolled cars and have either ended up in hospital or with severe injuries... I think Ruth and I were very good citizens in our past lives! For that, we are extremely thankful...... We feel blessed....


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