Long awaited update part 1

So! its been ages since I updated my blog.. various people have prodded me via email about doing so, and to them and the rest of you I apologise (and Im now updating as I should have done ages ago!)

Last week, the week before Easter, as a birthday present for me (and because it was a nice thing to do) my parents had booked up (and paid for) a family holiday. They booked a cottage for me and Douglas, and a large house for them, my younger brother and his three kids (Katy, his wife was working, so sadly couldnt join us)

Douglas and I were off work on the Friday, and due to set off on the Saturday morning, but by then Douglas kept being sick, and when he wasnt being sick he was making urgent dashes to the loo. He was feeling very grotty :-( Our thoughts on this were "oh no, not again" as hes suffered from this problem quite a few times now.

By abut 10.30am, I could see he wasnt getting any better, so we called the out of hours Dr service. Eventually, after the Doctor had phoned and found out what was going on, an ambulance turned up outside our house, and left with a hot/cold shivering/sweating sicky Douglas!

I followed, and after keeping him company and looking after him for several hours, the hospital Dr decided he needed intravenous antibiotics and a hospital bed. As the time ticked by I saw our holiday trickle like water through my fingers. I had been so looking forward to it.. and poor Douglas was feeling so horrible. It looked like our week off was going to be written off as a disaster.

By Monday morning, I was going stir crazy, so went into work and did half a days admin which took my mind of the fact that my parents, Thomas and the kids were having a lovely time in the picturesque Dales!

Dear Readers.. I rescued him on Tuesday afternoon. We came home, I packed the car, and off we went!

The journey up to Kettlewell was not uneventful. We engaged SatNav but not brain, so the dreaded contraption took us the most dreadful route via the suburbs of Bradford, a large sprawling and not terribly well off city. Just on the outskirts of the City, we noticed some smoke, and soon realised it was from the back passenger side wheel of our car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We stopped in a garage forecourt, well away from the petrol pumps, and called our car rescue service who came out to us within a couple of hours. The RAC man turned up, and had a good look at the wheel and brakes etc, and worked out that the problem was due to Douglas leaving the handbreak of the car on a few notches whilst driving, that had caused one wheel to get very hot and burn some of the greese away (that was the smoke).

Mr RAC rescue man followed us in our car for about 6 miles further up the road to ensure that there was no other problem, then left us to continue on to Kettlewell, much releived that it was nothing more serious!

Part 2 follows :-)