74) Wet, Wet, Wet

It has been raining, raining and raining. It must have been going on for two weeks now and I am really fed up with it. It is not too bad if I just have to clean houses but my work also involves taking people shopping or to medical appointments. Getting elderly ladies, who don’t move too quickly, to their destination on time and as dry as possible can be pretty hard. Last week I came home with my trousers wet to the knees a few of times. My husband wanted to know what I had been up to and was amazed when I said “Walking through puddles”. I know that sounds silly but what else do you do when the car park is under two inches of water. I know that it has not been nearly as bad as the floods in Queensland last year, just irritating and inconvenient. I don’t like driving in the rain, when the visibility is poor and the roads are covered with water and one can’t see the ever-increasing number of potholes that rapidly develop. It is hard on the council worker too. One day last week I was held up while a work gang shovelled gravel into a large new pothole, I thought it was a bit pointless as it was still raining hard. When I drove along the same stretch of road the next day the rain had washed away all the gravel and the hole was as big as before.

Driving in the wet reminded me of another time when I was driving in the rain some years ago. It happened when we lived in South Africa. We lived in a small village called Waterfalls in Kwa Zulu Natal and I was working in the next village called Hillcrest. One afternoon on my way home it started to rain, heavy rain that made visibility very poor and turned the road into a bit of a river. I turned on my windscreen wipers and slowed down to a crawl. The windscreen wipers worked well for a moment or two but then the one on the driver’s side went from left to right but failed to go back from right to left. It just went on and on and ended up laying along the side window of the car. It just lay there, immobile and useless while the wiper on the passenger side continued to flick back and fore just as it should. I pulled off to the side of the road, opened the window put out my hand and managed to get the offending wiper back on to the windscreen. Again it behaved itself for a moment but then went shooting off to the side of the car once again. I got out of the car and tried fiddling with it but I had no idea what was wrong with it and even less idea of how to fix it so all that was happening was that I had got completely drenched. The rain did not look as if it was ever going to ease and I was wet and cold and just wanted to get home and as I could not see without the wipers I decided to just drive with the window open and with my right hand out on the outside edge of the windscreen to stop the wily wiper in its tracks and make it go back from right to left again. I was completely wet already so that did not matter but it meant driving very slowly and the cars behind me were very impatient at being held up by my slow moving vehicle. So as not to cause too much of a hold up on the winding road through the sugar cane fields every now and again I pulled off to the side of the road to let all those who were in so much of hurry to get passed. Soon a police car came along and the two young policemen indicated that I should pull off again. They asked me what my problem was and I showed them what had happened with my wiper. They both looked at it but like me they could not fix it. They asked my how far I had to go and I told them I just needed to get to the first turn off in Waterfalls and I would be just about home and I was sure that my husband would be able to fix it. They obviously did not want to stand for any longer in the pouring rain so they told me to just follow them and they would get me back home. I got back into the car and they got into their police car. They started the engine, the lights and the sirens and we drove in tandem with lights flashing and sirens going and me close behind feeling a bit like a celebrity in a cavalcade. When they had seen me home they turned off their siren and lights and with a toot of the hooter they were on their way. How kind was that?

As I had thought Jonny was able to fix the problem quite easily and so no harm was done. I often wonder what people would have thought when they saw a little elderly lady, drenched to the skin and being escorted by two large young policemen. But I don’t suppose many people noticed it was me as the rain was much too heavy to see that far.