Renovation project - Crashing a car in France!

Renovation project - Crashing a car in France!

Well my daughter and baby granddaughter have flown home and the house seems so quiet without them, but we will be seeing them again soon as the baby will be getting Christened in a week’s time and we are going over to the UK.

We have an invitation to visit some new friends today who will be moving to France permanently in July, I have been looking forward to visiting their house for some time (they are also keeping a blog and I’m sure they won’t mind you taking a peek http://www.gerdaboltonphotography.com/)

We have the directions and the car seems to be running smoothly, I set the sat nav and of course it can’t find the address! Roads in France are very different to the UK as a postcode will cover a large area not just a few roads, I pick the one that seems the most appropriate and we get going.

It is a lovely drive and the house is approx 30 minutes away, I have seen a photo so as we get close I start to look out for the house, I see it just as we drive past! But no worries we should be able to do a U Turn as the roads are so quiet, we find a suitable and safe place to turn around and as we start to drive the car skids on something on the road, for a brief moment we are on the wrong side of the road just as a large wagon comes around the corner!!!!!!!!

John swerves and we miss the wagon, but as we straighten up the front wheel catches on the ditch at the side of the road and pulls us into the ditch, this is my first ever accident and it is amazing how slow it all seems, the car comes to a stop with the front corner in the ditch and suddenly this quiet road has so much traffic, the first wagon has stopped and blocked the road behind us, another wagon has pulled up in front of us and the driver and passenger are checking we are OK, as we are British the automatic response is ‘we’re fine thanks’ how the hell can we be fine when I have a sore neck from the seat belt and the car is stuck in a ditch?????

We have a tractor directly behind us and the driver of this and the wagon gets out to help us out of the ditch. One man leans across the bonnet, 3 are behind pushing it and john is steering, we are out in minutes and all of the people are so concerned, it is absolutely amazing, I have broken down in the UK and have had cars beep their horn because I am in the way! But here everybody just wanted to help.

As I am stood by the car I realise that I am shaking from head to foot, the realisation that if John hadn’t controlled the car so swiftly, we would now be inside the first wagon hits me like a thunder bolt!

Once we have made sure the car can still drive and reassured everybody that we are OK we drive the 500 yards to our friend’s house. Once there we look at the damage, the headlight is smashed with little tufts of grass and dirt sticking out of it, the wing is crumpled and the bumper has a bit of shattering in the fibre glass, but it has not caused any other damage, the bonnet is still in place and no other parts of the car have been affected.

We stop for a couple of hours and the house is amazing, they have done so much to it already, but I am so tired, which I realise later is probably shock and we head off for home.

Once there John gets on to the internet to look for spare parts for the car, we find a Volvo breakers yard in Nottingham in the UK and decide we are going to go back earlier than planned to buy the parts and fix the car.

Its days like this that make you glad you are in a sturdy car, the trusty Volvo comes to our rescue yet again! Though I am wondering if anything else can possible go wrong after the week we have had?