Things don't always go to plan

Well not in my house anyway. The plan for today was to do the laundry, a necessity really because there was a guy hanging around with a Union Jack threatening to claim the lad’s laundry basket for England. Then I was going to tackle the ironing. Not a job I relish but something that needed to be done. As I said that was the plan.
No 2 son (I number them it’s easier) came home from work and asked if I’d drive no1 son’s car up to a barn in the middle of the rolling hills of the Clun Valley where he had a friend’s van that needed to be collected. Simple enough job, would only take a few minutes and then I could liberate the laundry basket. Oh how wrong I was.
First of all there isn’t a road up to this barn just a rough track, the emphasis being on the word rough, but we got there. No 2 tried to start the van but of course the battery was hopelessly flat but being an ex boy scout, well actually he was a Beaver, he’d gone prepared with a spare battery to jump start the one on the van. Me in the meantime decided to turn the car around ready to go home.
Turn a car round, easy enough job I’ve been driving for donkey’s years. I looked around and saw a flat area of concrete, damp with the rain but that wasn’t a problem so I drove forward, then put the car into reverse and started to go backwards. Suddenly the back end of the car went down, thinking I’d missed the concrete I put it into first and tried to pull forward. It didn’t work. So I tried again and still it didn’t work. Deciding there might be something wrong, I got out and looked. The concrete that I thought was damp with the rain actually happened to be freshly laid and was still wet. Panic set in as I yelled to no 2 who climbed out of the van, which still refused to start and came around to have a look at what was wrong. At this point I will spare your blushes as to exactly what he said but you can imagine. I think also panic had set in with him to, because the only way he could see to get the car out of the concrete was to tow it with the still refusing to start van.
But, I’ll give him his due and remember he was in the Beavers when he was six, he noticed a digger type thing with a big bucket on the front parked not far from no 1 son’s very stuck car. Climbing into the cab, he started it, reversed it, found a towing strap and pulled the car clear. The relief we felt was overwhelming. After parking the digger type thing back where he found it he turned his attention once more to the van.
Finally it started. ‘Right Mum you go ahead and I’ll follow you and oh by the way you’re paying to jet wash the car’, which at this point was covered in mud, concrete and other nasty things. I drove back down the track expecting to see no 2 following me. I didn’t. I got to the bottom of the track and waited but still there was no sign of no 2. Just then my phone went. The number flashing on the screen was no 2’s.
I answered the call. ‘Can you come back Mum? I’ve got the van stuck.’ My heart was rapidly sinking as I turned the car round and drove once again, up the track. There with the back wheel perched on the embankment was the van. Now this van is not a small van, but a dirty great Renault Master so what he expected me to do about it in a Rover was beyond me.
But Dan knew. The idea was to tow the van uphill with the Rover. I had my doubts which were confirmed with the burning smell of the clutch on the Rover and the van not moving. In the end we admitted defeat. I shifted the car while Dan went and got the digger thing with the bucket. Fortunately that made short work of moving the van. However, by this time the battery was flat and in the end, we left the van where it was, I came home and Dan went to get his mate to help him.
I’m pleased to say the wet concrete has been sorted, the car has been cleaned and the farmer, well he saw the funny side of it and laughed.
So my afternoon turned out not to be what was expected and to be honest I don’t want to go through it again, although as I said everything is now sorted. But it’s a bit like writing really. We sit down at our computer, a story already planned out and then maybe a character will take over and the finished product is nothing like we intended it to be. Do we go with it or do we stick to our original intentions? That’s up to the author but I often think that it’s fun to go with that character and in my experience it usually makes for a better story just like my afternoon. After all you’d really have been bored if I’d written about the various spin cycles on my washing machine, wouldn’t you?