Like a Casualty Storyline….!

So a few weeks of preparation, grovelling to the bank and mass expenditure saw me ready to go up to the Eve show on 30 November. The show was to run for 5 days so I decided to take all of my stock with me…..not really being able to gauge how much I would be needing.

 I run Cottage Cooks on my own but found a willing helper in the form of one of my nursing colleagues, Terry. She was going to come up for 4 days to help me run the stand and keep me company drinking wine in the evenings. Husband was charged with driving the van of stock up for me then coming back to look after the girls whilst I was away, hopefully making the first Cottage Cooks fortune.

So he came home with a big van which we dutifully loaded up and the three of us were all set to go. Jay was heading out first whilst I got together the last few bits and pieces. He set off but 5 minutes later, I had him shouting from the driveway. Thinking that some moron had cut him up trying to get the van out of our drive, I took little notice………until the shouting continued.

I ran outside and down the drive to find him slumped against a wall saying he’d been crushed by the van. I couldn’t quite grasp what had happened but as he fell to the floor, I figured that it wasn’t just a little bump and he wouldn’t be able to drive the van up after having some painkillers, as he first thought. In hospital later, it turned out that the van had crushed him and fractured his pelvis in 4 places……thank heavens for the presence of my trauma matron friend!

In a moment of self pity though, I watched my Cottage Cooks dreams flit passed me, just out of reach once again. The police came and impounded the van, with all of my stock in it so they could do safety checks and my big promotional ideas went down the drain. With no stock, a critically ill husband and nobody to look after the kids, I wasn’t going to get to Birmingham for this show.