Claire's handbag and our adventure.

Claire wanted a new bag and has been saving her christmas and birthday cheques. Yesterday was the day to go and buy the bag.

We were driving up the M1 in driving rain when a tyre blew out. Horrible banging noise followed by loss of power and steering. Claire aimed for the hard shoulder pdq and we parked unharmed. We were on the hard shoulder of the sliproad from the junction of the M1 and M32 in driving rain with cars and trucks flying past, very close and very alarmingly. Not somewhere anyone would chose to be.

A very nice man stopped to tell us to get out of the car and offer us his umbrella. He was lovely, a personal trainer and gorgeous to boot. Claire didn't notice she was too busy ringing the RAC. Their driver rang back to check where we were and promised to be with us within 10 minutes - Claire told him to come quicker as we were about to die! I think his heart sank when he arrived as he really had to take his life into his hands to change the tire. I bet he would have won the competition for the quickest tire change ever. However he did it with a smile and a gentle reminder to get the tire changed asap.

We drove straight to the dealership to have the car checked and a new tire put on. The Toyota garage in Wakefield were lovely, kept us supplied with coffee for the two hours we were there, the car had a thorough check, and we eventually went back on our way to the handbags. We admired the rubber marks we left on the carriageway as we drove past.

Claire bought her bag. We came home thankful that she is a good driver and we got home able to complain that we had wasted three valuable shopping hours, both of us have curls in our ever so straightened hair, Ikea didn't have either of the two items I went for (but they did have the 750 items that I had to have once I was in there) and borders was closing when we arrived so I only managed to buy one book.

A good day.