Casa Rosales

Casa Rosales

Friday 23 November 2012

The things we do...

I came home from teaching yesterday and shared this anecdote with my friends on Facebook. I enjoy telling anecdotes and have a great store of them, many of which see the light of day more than once a year. Sometimes I forget to count how many times a particular anecdote has been taken out and aired in any one year.

I am very fond of my Level 9 class - they are in their final year at the academy and they are quite a chatty group, enjoying whole class discussions on impromptu subjects. Yesterday, we were 'planning a day trip' - I offered to pay - and we were having great fun deciding on which film we'd see in Granada before going for a meal. The only problem was transport. There were 9 of us and I was the only one old enough to drive, but we didn't have a car big enough. This brought us to the bus situation here in Alcala. In August, the buses to and from Granada were reduced in frequency and the latest bus from Granada to Alcala in the evening now leaves at the outrageously early hour of 6pm! FR has been doing a spot of activity, including writing lots of letters, speaking to the press and gathering signatures on a petition, so I took the opportunity to motivate my little band to register their protests too. I suspect they may choose to ask their parents for a lift when they need to go, but it proved an interesting topic for a while.

So the bus was no good. One enthusiast suggested we went on bikes but not everyone fancied the 35km ride. And this brought us onto other forms of transport and my experience of riding a moped. As a student, I mentioned that I lived in Staines which was some distance away from my college in Hampstead. I travelled on my trusty steed, Mortimer - a Yamaha moped, blue in colour and really rather sweet. Top speed was just under 30 miles an hour on the flat. Uphill was a little slower. I used to ride along the A4, which went past Heathrow airport and then joined the North Circular - a busy road even all those years ago! For years, in wind, rain, snow and fog, I pootled safely around the roads of London on Mortimer, although I remember arriving home once on a particularly freezing day, and not being able to straighten up or move my hands, so cold I was. Brrrr...

Our conversation had led me onto Mortimer (though I didn't name him to my class) and our accident. It was a bright, sunny day in April and I was riding along the quiet back streets of Mitcham, where I lived, on the way to Wimbledon, where I worked. Suddenly, a blue Metro pulled out in front of me, leaving me no time to swerve or brake hard enough to avoid a collision. I remember hitting the bonnet of the car and sailing through the air. I landed some distance away on the other side of the road, on my backside, looking up at the front grill of a black taxi cab. There wasn't a scratch on me and the taxi-driver, bless him, came running up to me and the first thing he said was 'Wow, that was fantastic; are you a stunt woman? Have you done that before?'  He was a charming man and stayed with me until the ambulance came.

I was wearing a skirt and boots and hadn't even laddered my tights, but I had a sinking feeling when I remembered that I had my 'spare' knickers on - the ones you really don't want to be wearing if you have an accident. They had a big hole in them and came up to the waist and were an unappealing shade of beige (pronounced on this occasion as 'beidge' please, to get the full effect.) And I started to giggle. And then I caught sight of Mortimer, who at first glance looked fine - but the second glance showed him to be at least a foot shorter from front to back! Poor Mortimer. He never recovered. I giggled more and the people around me told me it was shock.

I had fractured my knee cap on the handlebars on my way 'up' but executed a perfect landing on my way down - apparently turning a full somersault as I flew through the air. Hence the taxi driver's comment. I remember being surprised that it didn't hurt when I hit the car and I had time to say to myself, 'Well, you're not going to die but it will probably hurt when you land'. But I don't actually remember landing. I guess the brain doesn't record everything though for weeks afterwards, I had a full, slow-motion flashback of the accident - from lots of different angles, including watching it happening to me from a viewpoint somewhere above the action. Very strange.

Now, there is no way I would subject my English class to all this detail, but as we talked about the sensation of being on a bike as a lorry whizzes past you, I mentioned my travels in London on a moped. As I began to say I'd had an accident and damaged my knee, a voice piped up - in perfectly inflected English - 'Yeh, yeh, you've told us that one'.  I was momentarily mortified to think I'd already told them but decided instead to be pleased at the excellent intonation and pronunciation. I think this little summary version will become an anecdote in its own right...forgive me if you've heard it before!

Sharing this story on Facebook - in a much simplified version, of course - a friend asked if I had told them about the Cadbury's Creme Egg car. I suspect I haven't.

I'm not sure how, but a friend had an arrangement to drive one of only 5 Cadbury Creme Egg Cars in the weeks around Easter. These are real cars made in the shape of a creme egg - completely bizarre. This particular year, I was a bit down, having split up with my boyfriend of 20 years (he of half a house in France fame). It caused quite a stir when this friend came to my place of work and parked out at the back, where staff on all eight floors of the building could be seen hanging out of the windows - though as it was only 1995, there were no camera phones to capture the scene! He thought it would cheer me up to have a drive out in the car with him on Easter Sunday and suggested we go to Scarborough.

This probably would have attracted enough attention as it was but my sister had the brilliant idea of lending me one of her fantastic handmade fancy dress costumes. If you've made a gorgeous chicken outfit, you want it to be worn more than the once, I guess.

I went wearing a yellow hat which incorporated a large, red, padded beak; a shiny yellow tunic with yellow felt feathers; bright red tights and red shoes with huge padded, three-toed feet attached. I advise against doing anything like this unless you feel very cheerful and happy and don't have the weight of having called the emergency services to deal with your unstable ex the night before...and take a spare pair of shoes, especially if you sister has bigger feet than you. I don't advise you wear this sort of a costume or travel in this sort of a car if you are troubled or weeping - it's not what excited little children expect as they drive past, waving.

It was a bitter-sweet experience all in all and one I think I shall not share with my students. But even I regret the lack of photos for this particular journey!

I forgot to tell you that in Bridlington, where we stopped at a stately home (with the awful name of Sewerby Hall,) there was an exhibition of birds of prey. The attendant there very seriously came over to me and suggested I keep out of sight.
Birds of Prey.
Chicken costume....

Here, the Stig drives a Creme Egg car around a car park. Honestly, we went all the way to Scarborough and back in it!




18 comments:

  1. Wow...you've lived!

    The nearest I came to such goings on was when a 'go to work on an egg' lady knocked at our front door in full chicken costume....
    When father discovered that the eggs were not free he suggested that she cluck off...

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    1. Good one, Fly! I sometimes do feel I have lived a quietly bizarre life. Some people are flamboyant and really do live to excess. I suspect we all have such wonderful daft stories in our lives. I love to tell mine! Axxx (And I've read your blog too!)

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  2. This has made me smile a lot.....and yes, I've even risked a laugh. Great stuff Annie......Was the place of work described, Oldgate ????I would have loved to have looked out of my office window to see that.....but even in my befuddled current state I recall 8 floors at Oldgate, not 5...oh well.
    Keep warm...the new stove looks great .x

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    1. I knew I'd got it wrong but only a few of you would realise! It's because I worked on the 5th floor at the time. I think your office faced the main road, didn't it? It caused quite a stir, I can tell you and I think Winnie got a photo but who knows where it is now. What the heck, I'll go and change it to 8 just now.

      I hope it didn't make you laugh too much but glad you felt able to risk a little one! Take care and hope your return to health goes smoothly from now on.
      Much love
      Axxxx
      PS. We are roasting and have had to open the window....

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  3. Absolutely brilliant post Annie. You tell such wonderful stories, and I laughed out loud at the chicken costume. Thankyou for sharing this with us xx

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    1. And thank you, Ayak! I have done some daft things in my time but this was really very silly.
      I felt absolutely dreadful on the day but even then I knew there was a very comic side to it all and the man at the stately home was so lovely and entered into the spirit of it beautifully.

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  4. Hi Annie, thanks for visiting............my you've had some hair raising adventures.......a freefall somersault from a moped and not even a ladder in your tights, I'm much impressed.

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  5. Hi Kim and thank you! This is probably the silliest thing I have ever done...I think. I suspect it wasn't as impressive as the taxi driver made out - I think he was just being very kind. Axxx

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  6. You are clearly the coolest person I know!

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    1. That is so funny, Annie! You're obviously still an 8 year old inside!! Axxx

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  7. If it had been these days, you would probably be a "You Tube sensation" and make thousands from the advertising.

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    1. You might be right, BtoB! How things change. I know there is a photograph taken from my workplace, but we never thought to take photos on the day - with me in chicken outfit. When I go to my sister's at Christmas, I'm going to see if she still has it...and I shall photograph it!
      Axxx

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  8. Your story of odd vehicles & "eccentric" drivers reminds me of one I saw a month ago on the A14 near Cambridge - we overtook a yellow Reliant Robin towing an enclosed trailer with windows - inside the trailer was Del Boy's coffin! Sadly I was too gobsmacked to get my ever-handy camera out.

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    1. Don't you mean 'eggcentric, Nilly? Your viewing really is bizarre, Nilly. I'm amazed a Reliant Robin has the power to pull a trailer actually. And why is it that despite having ever-handy cameras, the really gobsmacking leaves us unable to snap? Happens to me all the time.
      Axxx

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  9. Thanks for the chuckle, Annie - just what I needed in this awful weather. :-) I vote you find that chicken photo and share it with us all.....

    Your tales of your moped took me right back to the early days of our marriage, when DH had to travel from Manchester to Cumberland and back on his moped every weekend for several months. In really cold weather I literally had to unpeel his fingers from the handlebars one by one so that he could get off the bike and get warm again.

    You were extraordinarily lucky in your accident, but I bet you wouldn't ant to ride a moped in London traffic nowadays.

    PS Not on FB, I'm afraid, so can't 'like' your page. :-(

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    1. Thank you Perpetua - so sorry you are having awful weather. Let's hope it improves in the next few weeks before and during Christmas. My sister says she still has the chicken costume and suggested I have my photo taken in it whilst we're over at Christmas - I think I shall have to be extremely merry to agree!

      Oh I do know that unpeeling the fingers feeling! I used to go into a hot bath - I'm sure it wasn't good for me but that's the only way I got any feeling back! Manchester to Cumberland sounds a long way to go on a moped too.

      Don't worry about Facebook - that's more for local folks as I'm now making chocolates with no idea how I'm going to sell them - hoping some of the locals will be tempted. Axxx

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