Eventful Weekend...

Crikey, where do I start...

One of the things you notice straight away when you leave the house with a tiny (although rapidly expanding) baby in tow is the number of people who sidle up to you (smiling) and ask the usual questions (name, age/sex(usually assuming the wrong one)/location birth weight), make some cooing noises, assume a wistful look and then walk off in a manner that suggests they are now surrounded by an invisible blanket...

On Saturday, when we took Thomas to Oxted leisure pool, we experienced a slightly different phenomenon...after all getting changed into our costumes (Thomas in his little waterproof swimming nappy with a picture of Disney's "Nemo" on the front) in one of the spacious unisex family changing rooms (with nappy facilities), blowing up his little yellow floating chair and parading down towards the water...I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that every single eye in the place was on us as we waded into the warm water, the unspoken group assumption being that as soon as baby met pool there would be a colossal screaming down of the place and we would (red-faced) turn tails, get dry and go home again...in actuality he *loved* it (although we did sort of suspect he'd be okay, as he happily hops in the bath every night with one or other of us - the purpose built baby bath only ever saw water the once)...all in all I suppose we spent about 25 minutes splashing around, Flyingpops even managed to do a couple of lengths in the sensible bit of the pool, while Thomas and I played in the wave area, and he only nearly drowned got ducked the one time, ironically when we were in the shallow end (and he didn't even get upset about that, just blinked his eyes a couple of times and got on with sucking the water off his fingers and staring around at the spectacle)...

Saturday lunchtime we spent at my folks, eating home-made soup and garlic bread, meeting potential new pet, Greek rescue dog "Bobby" (who is so laid back as to be almost horizontal)...then in the evening we went to Vodqueen and Uncle Scammell's house for a last-minute family party (which Thomas managed to pretty much sleep right through)...

Sunday morning we nipped over to Tesco to do the week's shop, Thomas got cooed over at the checkout by a sweet elderly couple, we pack up the car, just pull up at the Hookwood roundabout waiting for a gap in the traffic, Flyingpops commenting on the debris left by an earlier accident and how dangerous it is (despite the new traffic lights) and, as if calling down an accident upon us - **BANG** - Poppy the Beetle is shunted forwards - someone has crashed into the back of us!

I fly out of the passenger seat and wave both Flyingpops and the Fiat that has collided with us to the side of the road, peer through the back windscreen to make sure Thomas is okay (in typical Thomas fashion, he is still fast asleep - completely oblivious) and when the driver of the car behind clambers out (rather red faced) it's only the husband of the elderly couple from the supermarket...the wife is rooted to the passenger seat looking absolutely mortified, covering half her face with her hands...

Anyway, despite the initial shock and violence of the noise of the collision, there isn't actually much damage to see, the boot still opens, the bit of glass that fell out of the light from the number plate slots neatly back into place...leaving just two small scratches on the bumper, but we swap insurance details anyway and go our separate ways (amid many apologies and blushes)...

After dumping the shopping at home (and giving Flyingpops a cuddle) we head to Reigate and take a lovely fresh constitutional around autumnal-themed Priory park, stopping to score some sweet chestnuts to roast later on in the oven and I tell Flyingpops the names we used to call all the different hills (Bluebell, Break-neck etc.) to comments like "You took a sledge down that??", showed her the storm drains we used to play in (to looks of absolute horror) when we were kids and then we stopped for a drink and a shared four cheese pizza in the little cafe (which was a very messy, but satisfying affair)...

Sunday afternoon Thomas would not settle down, so in between putting things into roast or steam Flyingpops and I both spend time walking around jiggling him until he stopped whimpering, then put him down for 2 minutes, then picking him back up when the complaining resumed...but we could hardly moan ourselves as we'd had such an easy ride for all the rest of the weekend...

Pentonville Road closed - Accident

The train got me in to Kings Cross Thameslink quite early today (despite being late to leave Redhill by a few minues), my ticket wouldn't work in the barrier for some strange reason, meaning I had to queue up to get it checked in the procession of people either being issued fines, charged extensions or holding/dragging massive suitcases which gave me a minute or two peering out the window in boredom...then it struck me...the road was empty...bit odd...got out and the flashing lights hit me like a brick, the road was closed (shades of 7/7 reared up in my mind, so I grabbed my phone, only camera with me, and took a few snaps as I followed the trail of police cars to the source of the emergency)...

I passed 5 or 6 police cars blocking the road and offices directing traffic away from the Pentonville road -

- which was startling in it's appearance, not crammed with rush hour traffic -

- as I got nearer (I could see 8 or 10 police vehicles and a load of police tape just up the hill) I started hearing people talking about helicopters, and just then a Virgin air ambulance shot up from behind a building to my right, the rotor sound was obviously baffled until it came into direct line of sight to me and headed at speed northwards...

My curious nature got me in trouble this time, and I saw something I really didn't want to, it was a battered, dusty ten wheeled truck, the kind used to move tons of hardcore around for building sites, behind it in the road a tangle of metal with a bent bike wheel sticking out of it at a strange angle (could have been one or two bikes, it was impossible to tell it was so crushed)...and just being covered with a silver sheet was the totally mangled body of a young girl (no more than 10 or 12)..."Rosie" I gathered from the wails of her school friends as they clung to each other in confusion, desperation, devastation and horror...

I staggered away, my sense of reality robbed from me just as a member of the family was jogging, still perhaps none the wiser, up the road towards the police yelling out "I'm here, I'm family, now what's happened?"...

Can't make any judgement, as I don't know all the facts (just what I saw) but regardless - Sleep tight little one... :(

York Way accident

Whoops, looks like someone hit a lamp post in York Way overnight, leaving it at a bit of a crazy angle...the odd thing is, to do that you would imagine the vehicle in question must have been going quite fast, but the road (at that point) is a one-way street, in the wrong direction! And how did the thing next to it survive?

*Fink scratches his head*

(Previous crashes - bus crash (same road) and lorry crash (2 streets away) plus pictures of the aftermath)

Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre

Really didn't want to get out of bed this morning, the clocks haven't even gone back yet (last Sunday in October, don't forget!) and it's already dark when the alarm goes off...then managed to miss the early train, the one I did get had a faulty announcement system (every time it came on to announce the next station it was punctuated by very loud crackles), just miss a bus (I knew because there was no queue) and then that bus got held up when a cyclist nearly got thrown from his bike by an unobservant driver at the junction of Cannon Street and King William Street...now, considering I was at the top of the noisy bus about 200 yards from the incident, he must have yelled *extremely* loudly, because I looked up from the paper to see what had happened, and about 200 other people stopped what they were doing too and we were all staring at this hapless motorist get the roof of his car (repeatedly) walloped while the cyclist communicated his current state of mind to him in crystal clear, bullhorn fashion...by the time he finished expressing his displeasure (it felt like a very long time to me, and I wasn't on the receiving end), I think everyone was feeling rather sorry for the motorist, there were many wincing faces in the crowd (including mine)...it look him a while to pull away after the cyclist finally peddled speedily off (probably *very* carefully checking his mirrors this time)... ;)

Caledonian Road Lorry Crash - aftermath

Brought the proper camera into work today to check out the aftermath of the lorry crash that happened on Friday, and it was actually suprisingly little -

- I mean, the railing is a mess, a couple of panes of glass are missing -

- and the sign has taken a bit of a blow -

- but frankly, I think even if you were sat enjoying your breakfast right in the window you might well have got away without a scratch!

I *think* the cafe might have been saved by the hole in the ground, perhaps when the front wheels fell down there it grounded the lorry just in the nick of time...

Lorry crash - Caledonian Road

The road is closed, three fire engines and two police cars attending, the driver came round the corner, crashed into the one on the left and then parked his cab in the little cafe on the right!

Update - News story here!

A23 Bus crash - update

It made the metro, really sad, it was a mini-bus full of special needs from Tower Hamlets on a charity trip to the seaside (Brighton), one person was so badly injured they called out the Sussex air ambulance, still, at least nobody died...

Bus Crash... <:-0

This was the scene that greeted me and my close colleague "Torquay Slag" upon hearing a rumour whispering around the office that the road by Kings Cross station was closed due to a bus crash (this was back on the 24th of Jan). I think the picture merits a little commentary...in the foreground on the right you can pick out a number of policemen (I suppose between them and the firemen present there must have been about 20 members of the emergency services "attending the incident"). Not that there was a lot they could do - everyone was already off the bus (someone had helpfully built a pile of bricks by the bus door, which you may be able to see is around 2 feet off the floor thanks to the way the bus had lodged itself between the building and the pile of sand it's front wheels had very successfully mounted) and I don't think anyone fancied trying to shift it by hand...

The strangest thing,I suppose, about this scene is exactly how close this crash happened to the bus stop, the driver has basically managed to pick up his passengers, drive about 100 yards and then execute a 90 degree, right-hand turn into the wall...no other vehicles appear to have been involved...

Here is a close-up...no-one seemed to mind... ;)