Happy New Year all!!!
Well I am very reading your festive accounts which, despite projectile vomiting and food mountains sound fairly lovely in comparison to ours. Here follows my (rather long - get a cuppa)account of Xmas 09: one to remember!
Xmas eve we had an open house and whilst the adults enjoyed mulled wine the kids entertained themselves on the giant beanbag...tears from Kiah and 2 hours in A&E confirmed a fractured arm. She coped well on the Big Day with help opening presents as was in a temp cast and we had family round. All went well.
Boxing Day, lovely walk in snow and big meal at my parents farm. All good.
Next day decided to drive to Scotland after confirming that the arm could be set up there no probs.....3.30pm switched off engine in a queue on newly reopened snowy A9 and it had never started since!!
Pushed it to a snow filled layby and waited 2.5 hours for an RAC man to come and tell us we needed towing before he drove off into the blizzard. Police stopped, asked if we were OK 'just waiting for RAC' we said innocently and off they drove. RAC then phoned to tell us that no-one would come and tow us as it was snowing (wimps). Sat and waited for news....an AA tow truck pulled in and offered to tow us to services for free ('our saviour' we thought)....then he knocked on the frozen window and told us he was stuck and would have to get on the road and go. Off he went, without us.
We were now approaching the 5 hour mark. It was minus 6 and the girls were both asleep on my knee, wrapped in blankets. The RAC took 1.5 hours to book us a hotel and were trying to arrange a taxi (though what taxi was likely to venture where the tow trucks refused to go??!!). We called the police and requested a rescue...2 landrovers and 4 heroes whisked us to a hotel which turned out to be only about 1.5 miles away (if only we'd known that at 3.30pm)and we were welcomed with hot soup and cold beer.
Next morning we continued in a courtesy car, a tiny Fiesta in which we crammed half our gear including kitchen fitting tools and drove for 4 hours to my sisters with frozen screen wash so had to stop every 10 minutes to clean screen with snow!
Whilst at sisters I got Kiah's arm set with pink (of course) plaster which took 2 trips to hospital. Meanwhile the garage that had our car declared the engine had seized up and wasn't worth them fixing. They would ship it north when they collected their courtesy car.
We are still in this situation now! Have left DP up north fitting sister's kitchen and awaiting return of dead car and belongings. The girls and I came home by train on Sat which of course took 14 hours due to snow/the driver having to remove a tree off the track/missing our connection at Edinburgh and then all Manchester trains being cancelled.
Final straw was setting alarm this morning and getting girls into uniform before getting a text to say that the school was closed as the bioler was broken.....aaaaarrrrggghhhhh.
2010 can only get better (surely??) .