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Busy day rushing from one thing to the next. At 11am I was driving my daughter to her swimming lesson and my wife to the station and we were already leaving late. I had to reverse the car out of the garage, whilst looking out for traffic on the main road and keying in the postcode I needed into the sat nav. I knew every second was precious. There were cars coming, but they stopped for me, which is actually slightly annoying as I prefer to wait so I can get the garage door closed before I set off (like everything that was put in by the company who did work on our house, it doesn’t always work properly and sometimes opens up a foot or so once it’s closed). I’d just done my first personal training session for five years and had been up since 4.30am (I just woke up myself - the kids slept til 6) so I was a bit tired. I’d seen that there was a car parked directly behind me, but I was rushed and a bit distracted because the car was a bit to the left of the garage space and I didn’t want to hit the wall.
I don’t know quite how it happened, though suspect I was just in automatic mode where I knew I could swing back and be on my way, but I reversed quite hard into the car that was parked behind me. It was a bit of a jolt and a bit of a surprise. I have parking sensors but I hadn’t taken any notice of them for some reason. I drove up to a space and then returned to see what damage was done. Luckily the other car was mainly fine, though I did see one scratch in the paintwork. That might have been there before though. But on returning to my car I saw a smear of red paint on the back (and later I saw that I’d popped a bit of the body work out of place, though it popped right back in again). It was a surprising amount of mild damage for a low speed impact. But annoying.
Now, I was pretty certain that the car I had hit was my father-in-law’s. My mother-in-law was round looking after Ernie and usually she wouldn’t use this car, but I thought it would be weird to leave a note for her. And I was in a rush and would be back within the hour, so I took a chance and didn’t leave a note. I apologise for my crime.
Luckily this story doesn’t end up with me in prison because I had been correct. The car was my in-laws’ and I confessed to them straight away (and if it hadn't been them I would have come back and left a note). My father-in-law was not quite as convinced that this was a lucky break as I was. My mother-in-law apologised for me for parking her car there, so maybe I should have tried to get them to pay for the damage to my car. But this was totally my fault. And I was very annoyed to scuff my newish car, however mildly. And worrying that you can be so overloaded with information that you make such a dumb mistake (especially with a child in the car), but only paintwork has suffered. And not much.
I am actually surprised that any parents manage to get through these early years of childhood without killing everyone they love in an accident brought about by fatigue mixed with too many distractions. Maybe it’s nature’s way of preventing us from destroying the planet by wiping us out. But my car is electric nature. Go easy on me. I am one of the good guys. Let my family live.
Sadly Barry Cryer has had to pull out of the Henley RHLSTP (he's not unwell, so don't worry) but we've got a fab replacement with Fiona Allen from Smack the Pony. Come and see us if you can (though you have to get a ticket to the whole festival).
Or check out the other tour dates here.
