Near Death Experience

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellow,

Now I don't want to be over-dramatic but I NEARLY DIED today. 

Sort of.

Here's what happened, Caro and me went to visit Shenee and Craig. They are house-sitting a beautiful Grand Designs-worthy house built on top of a hill in a suburb of Wellington.

It's so big that there is room for Shenee to have her horses there. And so she's temporarily relocated them. Plus in the house there are two happy doggies and a cat, so obviously we needed to check this out. 

The doggies and kitty were just lovely and friendly and adorable so we had a great time petting them and making a fuss while Shenee put snackies in bowls* and brought us drinks. 

And THEN

Shenee suggested we go out in the "side by side". I'm just now looking up how these are defined. Wikipedia says:

A side-by-side is an off-road vehicle with a minimum of two seats positioned side by side and enclosed within a roll cage structure.

FURTHERMORE:

The vehicles may exhibit inadequate lateral stability, undesirable steering characteristics, and inadequate occupant protection during a rollover crash.

So anyway, Shenee drove the side-by-side to the field where her horsies were hanging out so I got to meet Finn and Amar again. 

And THEN

Shenee decided to drive us from the TOP of the VERY STEEP hill down to the beach via a series of DIRT TRACKS with PRECIPITOUS DROPS on the right-hand side. 

SO

I'm looking down at the dashboard and reading the big warning label because it was labelled WARNING. I forget the entire text because I didn't get past point four:

WARNING:
Safety precautions must be observed when using this UTV at risk of injury or death. 
- All passengers must wear a safety belt
- All passengers must wear a safety helmet
- This vehicle may only hold two passengers
- Extreme caution must be used when driven across unstable terrain

So we were ZERO out of FOUR, as Shenee whizzed around corners with just one very small person on the left hand side and two not very small people on the other side, clutching each other in SHEER TERROR.

Oh. And did I mention the GALE FORCE winds?

All I could think of all the way down was, "That's a heck of a drop. If we do roll, it won't be just one roll." This was followed by a list of celebrities I knew who had been injured driving quads/snowploughs and UTVs. 

So when Shenee made her beach plans clear I might have mentioned that I really wasn't feeling very safe and had pissed my pants when she was persuaded to take us back. 

HOLY EFFING ESS

Do I sound like a moany p*ssypants? Do I? 

GOOD. Because that's what I'm going for here. 

Honestly, I'd be so p*ssed off if I had died.

Anyway. Because neither Craig or Shenee drink I couldn't calm down with whisky so instead I sublimated my side-by-side scaredycat seizure into pizza. 

There was pleasant conversation and cute doggies but EFF ME SIDEWAYS. 

I mean. It was really very nice of Shenee and all that. And Craig did tell us afterward that he drives around those corners EVEN FASTER and the wind is always strong up there. But still. 

I might have saved Caro's life too.

Now I am home. Time for that whisky.

S.

* For us. The animals had already eaten.