How many..

.. cars, tires, wheels and hour’s does it take to collect someone from Birmingham.

Up early today to go and collect Chemo girl from Brum. She is spending New Year with us. Unfortunately her latest dose of Chemo was delayed which meant she was taking it over Christmas. This has resulted in her not feeling well enough to travel up on her own.

We left the flat at 8am in the pouring rain and headed out on the A702. We managed to get to Nine Mile Burn before I ran over a very large pothole. Stopping a mile or so down the road revealed a flat front tyre and a 1.5inch chunk taken out of the Alloy wheel at the back. The new car doesn’t have a spare only the foam stuff to put in the tyre and an inflator pump.
Not fun reading the instructions in the pouring rain. Filling up the tyre and then trying to inflate something that had been completely knackered. Gave up and called Lex Auto who organis e J’s company cars.

Managed to get the RAC out around 9.30 who looked at the front and damaged back wheel and informed us that he had passed another car that had been in the same pothole. The rear tyre was now flat and he needed to get a flat bed truck to take us to Edinburgh Audi and also report it as a Road Traffic accident.

While waiting for the flat bed we arranged a hire car to be delivered at the Audi garage. We were collected around 11am and passed the police car now positioned over the pothole on the way to Edinburgh Audi.

Managed to get the car booked in and started on our way at noon. Had an uneventful trip down after that and arrived in Brum around 5pm. After meeting VV&V for a quick cup of coffee it was back in the car for the return leg.

No problem getting back until we got on the dreaded A702 again. On the way down we noticed a lot of flooding so additional care was taken looking out for flooded sections. Turns out someone else had been swallowed up by the road. One section was very flooded and two cars had obviously come around the corner and hit the deep water and aquaplaned off into the ditch. The police were there taking care of them.

Finally managed to get back to the flat at 11pm. 15 hours, 2 cars, 2 tyres and at least 1 wheel, after starting out but with Chemo Girl safely delivered. Time for a well earned beer and dram.