Short Term Karma

Back to one of my favourite topics: you get what you give. Or turning it somewhat inaccurately on it's head, you should give what you get.

Since I've been ill, I haven't been doing a lot. Mainly taking country walks, apparently from the number of clothes, doing lots of shopping and cooking the odd meal. So going back to work half-time has been a bit of a shock. I have no idea how I managed a full-time job and running my life previously because right now I couldn't do it. It hasn't helped that lots of other activities, such as counselling and my IAM advanced driving, have started around the same time.

And this Tuesday was scheduled to be the granddaddy of all busy days. I had to go to Southampton in the morning to attend a 9:00 am hospital visit with my daughter. I was working in Bristol in the afternoon and had a counselling session in the evening.

The day started well enough, I left Bristol around 6:15 am for a slightly under two hour drive to meet my daughter at 8:30 am. The weather was reasonable, the roads flowing nicely and I had a chance to put a few of the new driving habits I'm attempting to acquire into practice. I had the radio on and was getting regular traffic announcements.

As I reached to junction of the A34 and A303, with about 40 minutes to go, the matrix road sign said “road ahead closed”. Had I realised what that meant, I would have diverted there and then, navigating to Southampton by instinct. However, in my naiveté, I took closed to mean there would be a diversion taking us off at the appropriate junction and feeding us round the problem area. Oh dear me, no. What it should have read was “accident ahead, leave road at next junction”.

As I carried on, another junction came up and as I was deciding whether to cross over lanes to leave at this point, I had to slow down to avoid the traffic jam. No-one was willing at that point to let me change lane and so I had to crawl pass at about two miles an hour. And now on the radio an announcement told me that a lorry had overturned on the junction for the M3 and the tailback wasn't moving.

About 20 minutes later, I had managed to get in the left-hand lane and had reached the first lay-by. But now a total disaster overtook me as I realised my mobile phone was still recharging at home. There was no way I could let Karen I wasn't going to make it and she might wait too long for me and miss her appointment altogether. There were 3 trucks and one other car in the lay-by, so I went over and knocked on the car window. I explained my dilemma and the gentleman kindly lent me his mobile. But, of course, I didn't know my daughter's phone number – it's in the sim card memory. So I had to phone my husband first; and I had no way of storing the number. The problem had already been anticipated by my knight in shining armour and a piece of paper and a felt-tip pen were already at my disposal.

With 10 minutes to go before I was due, I managed to reach my daughter to let her know that I wouldn't be there. I calmed her down, answered her questions about what to expect and then had to leave her to face the hospital by herself. Here I have to thank my benefactor again from the bottom of my heart and confess that I didn't even ask his name, so I can't give him a roll-call here. Now I could rejoin the traffic jam relatively unstressed and see how long it would take me to finally arrive at my destination. In fact, I was in time to meet my daughter coming out of her appointment and hear her good news.

So just before midday I headed back to Bristol. Rather than return via the site of the accident, which was probably still congested, I went back via the A36. Just outside Plaitford I spotted a white haired gentleman apparently hitch-hiking. I was passing a lay-by and so pulled in to offer him a lift. He was headed to Whaddow (about 3 miles) and was walking because he would have had to wait 2 - 3 hours for a bus! It was so nice to be able to return a favour to someone else. It wasn't as important as the favour done for me that morning, but at least it was helping out a fellow person.

So I tried to give back the favour I had received and that, is the idea I'd like to propagate. Do something nice for other people every day. You'll be surprised how often you get sincerely thanked. And how often you'll find that asking others for help when you need it results in meeting a kind and generous soul. Finally, can a say yet another thank you to the man in the 55 Vauxhall Zafira.