Phone call from my parents:

“First of all, we want to say we are OK”

....”um, ok” heart drops into stomach...

“But we’ve had an accident....”

“WHAT?!!”

Yes. A few nights ago my parents rang to tell me they had a car accident. You all know that they are travelling around Australia? They have their car and everything else packed into a trailer they had specially made. Anyway, they were cruising along at considerable speed on a semi-remote highway when one of the trailer’s tyres blew. Absolute chaos. The trailer started violently rocking back and forth, spun the car around, then luckily, it tore it’s A frame in half and broke loose from the car and tumbled and turned along the road, throwing all of its contents everywhere. The tyre that blew, broke off and hit the back of the car. Finally everything came to a stop. The car had rolled back onto the A frame of the trailer, tearing a hole in the bottom of the boot. Needless to say my parents were pretty shook up. And that my Dad’s skilful driving and the fact the trailer broke loose saved their lives.

So they got out of the car and started salvaging everything that survived the crash. Dad lost some tools, Mum lost some sentimental things she had collected along their trip. Their expensive little fridge/freezer was trashed, and the trailer was smashed beyond repair. The other tyre was no-where to be found. Weirdly, Mum found her fluffy pink dressing gown under the car.

A school bus came along and the driver and teacher jumped out to help. They put all of my parent’s things down the centre isle of the bus, and the teacher drove the car, and they took them back into town. The bus driver then took my parents out to dinner and shouted them a nice big steak. He also offered them the use of a little cabin at his bus depot. Also, the teacher has offered them his house for two weeks while he and his wife are on holiday overseas. The local garage fixed one of the car’s tyres for free. How nice are people? You get that in a country town in Australia.

The next day my parents drove back to the crash site to get the rego sticker and numberplates off the trailer and it was GONE! Either it was stolen or the council/police came and picked it up. At least it was insured.

So my parents have a couple of weeks to recover from the shock and decide what they are going to do. Hubby and I have offered our home as a base for them to restart, and any other help we can give them.  I shudder to think what could have happened... I’m just glad they are OK.