Geekgasm & the kindness of strangers

Anyone following my twitter feed this evening will know that I went to the Hay Festival to see Terry Pratchett (apologies for the badly focussed picture, there's only so much you can do with a phone camera while walking, instagram or no instagram).

If you've been a regular reader of my Magpie Monday posts, you'll know I'm a bit of a Terry Pratchett fan, and living only 30 miles from Hay-on-Wye, this was always going to be a must-see, even more so considering Terry's illness.

It was a pretty emotional thing for me, while he faces up to an incurable disease with a strength and patience that I could never imagine, his fragility was evident throughout.  It didn't dampen his sharp wit and incredible talent though.  Rob Wilkins was the host for the session & did a reading from Terry's new book The World Of Poo (due out tomorrow, so we got a sneak preview!), and spoke about The Long Earth, which is due for release on 21 June.  With another book due to be released in September, there doesn't appear to be any let-up in his amazing productivity.

I'm too much of a wimp to stand up in a big tent full of 500+ people and ask questions, even though there were a million in my mind, wondering which was the Discworld character he would most like to share a drink with, whether there was ever a plan for a follow up to Good Omens, or why he chooses to write Discworld without chapters.

After the session finished I headed back to my car, parked on one of the numerous fields masquerading as expensive charity car parks, via a Help For Heroes hot dog stall, and sat in the queue to get out.  Someone waved me down when I was 3/4 of the way out (and blocking the road) to let me know my front tyre was flat - oh joy, and I limped the car out of the car park & everyone else's way to have a little look.  Yep. Flat.  That's a fair word for it. Pancaked.  (Bad blogger forgot to take a photo of this momentous discovery).

I am not good at staying calm & thinking rationally.  I phoned SqueakyDaddy on the verge of tears (and the grass verge, ha ha ha!) to ask him what to do.  He suggested I call the breakdown, as that's what we pay them for, and generally chill out.  So I phoned.  The guy took the details, and said 45 minutes.  I wait.  I get out & get the spare tyre out of the boot, as I can do that bit, and I needed to get the buggy out of the way, and wait some more.  After half an hour, the garage phone me to say they'll be at least another hour.  Grrrrrrrrr.  And I wait some more.  I'm sitting on the side of a pretty busy main road, right outside the festival and 2 car parks.  It takes AN HOUR for someone to stop & offer to help.  But eventually a very lovely couple did stop, and changed the tyre for me.  And finally I got on my way home.

I figure I owe the universe a favour now.  And I'll owe the garage money for a new spare tyre in the morning.

The moral of the story? Always carry a spare.  And learn to change your own blooming tyres woman!