Tuesday 21 November 2023
High drama (admittedly with a low benchmark) in the middle of nowhere, outside our house yesterday, and all within an hour. First, a logging truck caused a van driver to pull over into a ditch and sink half the van into deep mud (not Openreach this time, this one was a stairlift company – nothing to do with us). I had been out walking, and I’m fairly sure I know which of the logging trucks that passed me caused the incident. Anyway, just as I was getting to the house, I noticed the van with hazard warning lights on at an angle that no one would ever choose to park at. I then saw Chris heading out to check the driver was ok, see if he needed to make a call, etc. He was fine.
I went up to my desk and was working when I heard what I thought was a cow mooing repeatedly. Then I thought maybe Chris had had some terrible accident or something, so I went to check up on him. He was fine and no cows. We then heard it again and followed the sound. Believe it or not, it was the horn of a vehicle. Then I saw the neighbour walking with purpose down the drive in his slippers. Chris went out too. It was the postman, who had gone into the back of his van to get out a parcel (Chris’s, incidentally) and the door had shut behind him, essentially locking him in the security cage of the back of his van. The alarm, ie the horn, had then gone off. The neighbour, with some difficulty, managed to open the door and get him out. So that was the postman rescue.
The final event was that the AA came out for the stairlift van and was unable to pull the van out (something snapped off the back of the AA van and there was far too much smoke with no vehicle movement). Then the AA van disappeared down the road, returning, seemingly, with a large tractor. A blacked out dark grey transit van pulled up and at one point I think there were five men working out what to do. Then another logging truck stopped behind them. Unsurprisingly, the tractor got the van out and all dispersed.
And quiet and order was restored in the valley. The end.