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September 19, 2005

GUARDIAN ANGEL?

The pain in my right shoulder still hasn't gone away you know, although it is so much better than it was. I am still at a loss as to how I could have caused myself such an injury when lying in bed.

Anyway, whether or not there was a voodoo doll involved remains to be deduced, but this next event is equally as weird.

When I moved house back in May, I moved approximately seven miles south east and that meant that my usual half hour traipse around the M25 on the return home from work every night was no longer necessary. My new route home involves an initial four miles through several back streets and country lanes and then the negotiation of several A-roads in the suburbs of North West London.

It had been a particularly stressful day at work - the 'things to do' pile just kept getting bigger and bigger, I was under pressure to get a report done and every time I got rid of an email, another one appeared in the inbox. But by quarter to six I'd had enough so I jumped in the car, turned left and joined the Old Uxbridge Road. The Old Uxbridge Road is a B-road, which means that it is quite narrow and cars very often have to slow right down to get past each other and this particular B-road intersects some fields - there are cows on the left and a football pitch on the right. It's typical English countryside, if you like. A bit like the opening scene in an episode of Postman Pat.

I was driving at a sensible speed, wary of the concealed entrance coming up on the left where a small calf had been strutting around loose the other week, but the road was almost straight and as usual, there was nothing coming the other way. By the time the concealed entrance had been and gone, the straight part of the road began to come to an end and the left hand turn loomed. It's not a nasty left hand turn by any stretch of the imagination, nor is it a gentle one, but it is a bit of a blind corner and you should always take it slowly and with precaution. I wasn't going fast, how could I? There could be anything just around the corner - a child on a bike, a jogger out in the late summer sun or another loose calf.

As the car approached the bend, I was halted in mid-chorus of Easyworld's 'You and Me' by a voice that came into my head. I actually heard a voice in my head and it stopped me singing. It told me to "be extra careful round this bend today". In those exact words. I still remember them even now, such was their clarity and tone and such was my surprise to hear a voice in my head. I wasn't going any faster than normal and my normal wasn't very fast anyway, but as images of colliding with a small cow or worse entered my brain in a nanosecond, I slowed right down and took the extra precaution as the voice had commanded. Seconds later, on the wrong side of the road and at breakneck speed, a BMW Z4 (what else?) came hurtling round the corner, causing me to take evasive action and I narrowly avoided swerving into the nicely-groomed hedgerow. I kid you not, any further forward and that Z4 would have gone headlong into the front of my car. Without putting my foot on the brake when I did, after the instruction from the voice, the cars would have collided and I could well have not been here to recount the story.

Now, I'm not one for believing in ghosts or supernatural activity and quite honestly I'm a bit of an athieist, but that event was freaky. Is there such a thing as a guardian angel? Could my guardian angel have been at my defence in that instance, warning me to slow right down for that left hand corner? Maybe it was the voice of precaution? I actually heard a voice in my head and that voice stopped me singing. Whatever it was, it was bizarre, it was spooky and it was weird but I'm glad it happened, it has cemented my belief that BMW drivers are the biggest w*nkers on the planet.

Posted by jonola14 at September 19, 2005 09:09 PM

Posted by: Wibbler at September 19, 2005 10:15 PM

Posted by: Salina at September 20, 2005 12:01 AM

Posted by: Salina at September 20, 2005 12:03 AM