Christmas Eve surprise

[shewhomust]

The plan for tomorrow was that we would drive into Newcastle for S.'s traditional Christmas morning party: Buck's fizz and smoked salmon and as many of her friends who could leave the turkey in the oven and take a break while it cooked. And then she would load the dishwasher and come here with us for Christmas dinner, and we'd drive her home the next day. We've done this before, and it works well.

However.

At about three o'clock this afternoon I was washing up from lunch, and knocking back the bread dough and thinking that my next move was to go up to the spare room, replace the bookcase that we'd moved to give the builders access to the radiator and make up the spare bed - and then I should probably start to make the stuffing for the bird... when there was an almighty thump from the road outside, where, it turned out, a young man on a bicycle had failed to negociate the bend and cycled right up and over our car.

durham_rambler brought him in and sat him down, and encouraged him to phone his mother. He was walking, but very shaken, had a nasty scrape on his arm and, though he was reluctant to admit this, an even nastier one on his leg. There is a very impressive dent right up the bonnet of the car (seriously, much more impressive than the one White Van Man made in the back) and another in the windscreen. The glass is crazed rather than shattered, but we aren't going to be driving that car anywhere until it's been fixed - and while our insurers were happy to provide a courtesy car, by the time we'd reached that stage, the person in charge of courtesy cars had gone home.

So, change of plan. S. will be abstemious at her party and drive here when it is over ("and I can start drinking then, can't I?"). I miss out on the party, but I have extra time for preparations tomorrow, which is why I have time to write this now. Our young cyclist is going to be very sore tomorrow, if no worse: his mother may well decide to take him to hospital to get that leg wound looked at. She, I think, is the person who comes off worst out of this (at least in the short term: ask me again when we've been without transport for a long weekend) having just yesterday taken her mother to hospital with a chest infection and confusion, and already having that to worry about.

And it looks as if we shall be having what we said we wanted, a quiet Christmas at home.

Here's not one but 12 Christmas cards for you: the Twelve cartoons of Christmas from the Guardian. Among a number of star illustrators, my favourite is still Shaun Tan's contribution.

Comments

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

I tracked down the young man's father's Facebook page which reads [with names redacted]
Bloody Bikes, First [son #1] gets hit by a car now [son #2] has hit a car, another evening in A&E and another wrote off bike just in time for Xmas

Merry Christmas, then...!?

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

I quite like Blake's rockin' Robin but also those three wise men on an elephant but you must not have young men bicycling on or across your car; it just isn't done...or so I thought? He needs to be told but his mom sure will! It sounds so weird, was he speeding downhill, possibly? I don't really get how he got up on top of the car, how does this kind of thing even happen?? Now I just saw durham_rambler above and see, how his father does not seem as surprised as maybe he should be, oh dear...

Re: Merry Christmas, then...!?

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

It's quite a steep hill, and there's a bend in it. We were parked across the road, because the space outside our house was taken, and, as durham_rambler said, we wouldn't have parked there if it had been icy, because it's not unknown for cars to skid on that corner. We thought in this midl weather we were safe, but never under-estimate a 17-year old boy!

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Oh no! That's so peculiar. And not much fun for anyone involved. Hope you enjoy your quiet time.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I am enjoying taking it very easy (and S. brought us lots of delicious party food).

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Yikes! Glad the boy was hurt no worse. Hope his parents knock some sense into him: he needs not to be spoiling people's Christmases, including his own.

Love the Christmas cartoons. Yes, the Tan is the standout, but the Quentin Blake is lovely.

Nine

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

As they left, his mother was asking him whether he'd been wearing his helmet (we didn't see it, and suspect not). I think he'll be severely told off...

[cellio]

Ouch. I hope the cyclist is ok and that you are not too inconvenienced by the damage. (I've no idea what it takes to get a courtesy car, or the actual repairs, in the midst of holidays.)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

From the FB post that durham_rambler quotes above, we know that the cyclist's parents took him to hospital to be patched up, but the tone is more anoyed than alarmed, so I think he's OK.

We hope to have a courtesy car tomorrow, once the repairs department returns to work. I don't know what would have been possible if it had been an emergency and we actually needed a car - but since we are no worse than inconvenienced, nothing happens over the holidays!

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Catching up...from quite a while ago.

Was there any follow-up on this? It really sounds like the boy and his family got the worst of things by a long shot.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Good to know you're still out there - you've been very quiet!

We saw the young man in question in town about a month ago - so he doesn't seem to have suffered any lasting damage to himself! We haven't heard any more, but then we wouldn't expect to - the insurance company have taken over, and we've left it to them...