Wendell's World of Minor Catastrophes

Never a day goes by with something going wrong in Wendell's world of minor catastrophes. Take today for example. Two of our bicycles had minor faults, so we put them in the car and took them up to Green Ventures, a social enterprise in Thetford which specialises in renovating bikes that would otherwise end up in landfill. After a short wait our bikes were serviced and ready to come home again, so all well and good.

I then decided to go to Sainsbury's to get milk and flour to save me going out again later. I bought these items, together with a comic which included free gifts for little one, but more of that later. Now being a Saturday the car park was busy but we found a space and went in to get stuff. So far nothing had gone wrong, which in my world does not auger well.

Upon exiting Sainsbury's car park it is necessary to turn right onto a busy two way road, looking for fast traffic coming from both directions. The cars to my left blocked my view and I had little one in the car with me, so I was not prepared to leave until it was clear on both sides. This was not good enough for the red faced, middle aged man in the green van behind us, who thought leaning on his horn would help  my decision making process. It did - it startled me, and I remained stationery for a few seconds longer.

So after turning right at the roundabout we emerged onto the dual carriageway. Green van man horned again and when I looked in my rear view mirror I saw him waving an angry fist at me. Oh, I did feel admonished - so I admonished him back. We then turned left past the golf club and fortunately a blue car had got between the two of us and I was away. I looked in my rear view mirror a few times and noticed he was now tailgating the blue car. That man needs re-admonishing I thought.

Now back to the comic and free gifts. One of the gifts was a plastic mobile phone with discs which can be ejected at the pull of a trigger. After arriving on our driveway I looked at this object and pulled the trigger. A red disc flew straight into the air vent beneath the windscreen where it lodged itself out of finger's reach. Little one was distraught at this, so I proceeded to try and poke the disc out with (a) a wrench (b) a luggage strap (and (c) a plastic flag handle. None of these worked and when little one told me she had three more discs I gave up.

Finally, I removed our two refurbished bikes from the car and went indoors but I could hear little one crying on the front lawn. When I asked her what was wrong she told me her bike wasn't working and the pedals weren't going round. I had a look and noticed the chain had simply fallen off, so I lifted it back into place. I'm sure the black oil will come off my hands in a day or two.

I'm now typing this and little one is asking to go for a cup of tea and a bike ride. So after tea I will be out and about again. I do hope green van man isn't in the forest.