Yesterday's Adventure!

As it was Bank Holiday Monday, we decided to drive LMS back to University rather than have her get caught up in the usual Bank Holiday train chaos! We made good progress and good time on our drive over. We stopped at our usual place just outside University Town for lunch before carrying on the last bit of the journey to drop LMS off. We had been told that we weren't allowed to go into LMS's room as it was too messy, so we dropped her and her stuff off, and armed with her shopping list went round to the nearby supermarket to stock her up on essentials. While we were there LMS pack some of her things into boxes for us to take back with us, she only has a few weeks left until the end of term (and the end of her second year of University!). She had mellowed a little when we got back laden with shopping and we spent a few minutes chatting in her room, and I didn't say anything about the state of it!! Then we reluctantly loaded up the boot with all the boxes and bags of un needed stuff, said our goodbyes and set off home again. On the way to University the traffic going the other way had been horrendous, so we used the GPS to navigate round the bad traffic and also to visit Sister in Law and Cousins who live fairly nearby.

Little Prince had a great time getting out every single one of his older cousin's toys in his room!! Well that's what it seemed like when I dragged him back up the stairs to try and tidy up a little!! I have no idea how he managed it, but Little Prince seemed to know where each and every one of the toys went - but couldn't manage to put them there without my help and prompting!! We had a good chat with Sister in Law and she made us all a sandwich before it was time for us to set off on our way home again. Mr Messy also arranged to visit again either next weekend or the weekend after (depending on the weather) to do a beach photoshoot with the two kids. Not sure that we've really got time to do this just before we go back to Ethiopia, but its lovely to them and we don't get together often enough - we'll just have to work hard at fitting everything in :-)
By the time we were on our way again the earlier bad traffic had cleared and we were zipping along. We had to slow down when it started to hammer down with rain, which was probably a good thing considering what happened next!! We were driving round a roundabout and noticed a car at the side of the road that had obviously been in a smash. Its a pretty quiet stretch of road in the middle of nowhere, and the car was the same make/model as Mr Messy's so it stood out!! The next thing we knew we could hear weird kerchunking noises from the front corner of the car, and we were bumping around quite a bit! We had a flat tyre - we probably hit some debris from the earlier car crash!! We managed to limp to the car park just up the road a little and parked so that Mr Messy could assess the damage. The tyre was totally flat! It was pouring with rain! It was pitch black! We had no mobile phone signal!! And the boot (over the spare wheel bay!!) was FULL of LMS's things!!! Mr Messy found his coat and went wandering back down the road to see if he could find some mobile signal, and luckily managed to. We called the AA and also let Drama Teen know we would be much later home than we had thought - she laughed!!!
Little Prince came and sat on my knee in the front of the car and cuddled up dozing, it was WAAAY past his bedtime and he was very tired. He was also pretty hyped up and excited about this new adventure!! He said this was the best adventure of his life - oh to be six again :-) The AA turned up in much less than the hour the call centre had said we would wait, and managed to change the wheel pretty quickly. The spare is what is known as a skinny spare, which isn't as wide as a normal tyre, so we had to take it really easy for the rest of the journey and it was almost midnight before we got home!! What a day!!!!