At the end of our road lights were flashing in the dark. A bit late to be taking the cows to the milking shed I thought. Nothing to do with cows but the road. I was barred from heading in the usual direction. 'A truck has rolled, completely blocking the way through,' the guy manning the hurriedly erected barriers told me. 'You'll have to go the long way.' At least I had that option although it meant heading in the opposite direction to my destination. Except the road, the Queen Charlotte Drive as it is known, is in a state, with numerous slips and slumps that the roading crews are working round the clock to clear and fix, for the second time in two weeks. These roads wind around the edge of hills with the sea below. It was a slow thirty minutes to Picton where everything was under a heavy blanket of frost - so slow down further and take it easy.
I head towards Spring Creek and what's next is fog. And more fog. At last I reach the turn off and I'm finally heading towards Nelson. The traffic cops are out in abundance and everyone's crawling along. When I have coverage I phone the medical centre and explained the situation. The receptionist kindly squeezed me in between two other appointments. I just had to get there.
One hour later than I should've, I go through Havelock and into more fog. I finally made it to Nelson , dashed into the medical centre and saw the doctor, then raced to the accountant's, late for that appointment. By then I was ready for a very strong coffee (too early for wine) so parked and headed into a cafe. Ten minutes later I returned to find a parking ticket on my windscreen. Great. it had just become the most expensive coffee I've ever had as the area I parked in is controlled by an international company not the local council. Who knew that? Not me.
Mr Mac had been in Nelson since the day before, working at the port for two days. I was going to hang around to pick him up at six when he finished. Then he texted, said he probably wouldn't be coming home as the ship they were loading had been shut down by Maritime Safety. Seems my day was rubbing off on him. I decided to wait until he knew what was happening.
Then a text from a close friend who wanted to take me to lunch as a belated birthday present. Perfect. We had a great couple of hours catching up. But what was happening with Mr Mac? The phone was silent. Because I'd accidently flicked my phone into silent mode. A message popped up from an hour earlier, he was ready to go home. Then another, he'd see me at home. I left town, knowing he had a ride, and trying to get in touch every time I had coverage, not often on that bush enclosed road. He wasn't picking up my calls, apparently he'd run out of time on his phone and since it's out of the ark he can only top up on the computer.
When I passed the place where the truck had rolled that morning I knew my day had been a lot better than the truckie's. Eventually Mr Mac and I got home, the plus side for me was the warm, cosy house with the fire roaring and dinner prepared.
In the end, the day panned out fine, no problems with the doctor or accountant, AND lying in bed last night I began thinking like an author. What if I'd been a beautiful doctor (yeah, right) and was asked to help the sexy, rugged truckie as he'd been injured? I think this story line needs a lot of work, but who knows what might come out of it.
You just don't know what's going to happen when you get out of bed in the morning, do you? Have you had days that have gone haywire and still turned out okay in the end?
In Surprise Twins for the Surgeon my heroine's day didn't go as planned either.
No comments:
Post a Comment