When I woke up this morning I had a to-do list to complete and Ia schedule to keep to. Little did I know that my day was going to take a major detour from what I had planned.
It started relatively well with me being able to drop the girls at high school and preschool, before setting off for meetings in London. Opting to drive and park at Westfield Stratford rather than taking the train. Luckily the journey was smooth with on the last segment holding me up in traffic.
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Just an ordinary day
A dash to my first meeting which I was 10 minutes late for. I hate arriving late, it always gives a bad impression. Especially as this was a new collaboration and I hadn’t yet had the chance to meet them. Thankfully they were lovely and didn’t seem to mind that I was slightly late. The meeting went well and I can’t wait to share with you everything I learnt.
As I left the meeting I had an email to say my other meeting had been cancelled. Which worked out well for me as I would now be able to get back in time for Tigger’s swimming lesson. So I dashed back to Westfield and grabbed a Subway to munch in the car. As I suddenly realised that I hadn’t eaten or drank all day (I don’t like to have a drink before a long drive as I have the bladder the size of a peanut, with no time to stop for a toilet break).
Locked out
I headed back to the car, paid for my parking and opened the passenger door to offload my bag, food and coat. I closed the door… CLICK… as I heard the car doors lock… BUGGER!
In that split second I started frantically trying all the door handles. I’m not sure why I bothered checking as I knew in my heart it was locked. I stood staring at my car with everything inside… my keys, my phone, my purse and my lunch.
Can you help?
Across the car park I spotted a car cleaning station across the way so I went over to see if they could help. I think I hoped that they would magically be able to open my car, However, it wasn’t the case. As lovely as they were there no way they wanted to effectively break into my car. They did let me borrow their mobile phone to try to call Mr Boo. Unfortunately, he wasn’t answering. So they suggested I head over to the car rental place in the next car park along. I explained my predicament to them and once again they weren’t willing to break into my car. I asked about breakdown cover and they explained that they would probably pop my window and depending on my cover they may or may not replace it.
No response
I attempted to call Mr Boo again, but no response so I had to leave the news of my predicament on his voicemail. I waited for a while to see if he’d return the call but to no avail. Not even knowing what to do next I headed back to the shopping centre to speak to the Westfield customer services.
After explaining what happened they let me call Mr Boo, who thankfully answered his phone this time. Somehow I’d managed to keep my emotions in check up until this point, however, upon hearing his voice it brought me back to reality and I started to feel a little overwhelmed by the situation.
Can you bring the spare key?
Knowing that the only way to get out of this situation was for him to drive two hours to bring me the spare key. However, there was still an hour until the end of the school day but Tigger had sports club until 4pm and then swimming starts at 5pm. Mr Boo said that he’d collect Tigger at 3pm and he’d just have to miss his commitments. But this would also mean arriving into London during rush hour. Not good.
So I explain that he should let Tigger do sports and swimming and then drive down after that. Arranging to meet in the car park at 7.30pm.
Six hours in Stratford
What do you do when
Grabbing Some Kind of Wonderful by Giovanna Fletcher novel I looked around for a comfortable chair to sit in. Something the Stratford Library was lacking in so I ended up sitting in the children’s section. Twenty-six chapters later it was time for me to head back to Westfield. (I’ve just ordered the book from Amazon so I can see how the story ends).
Mr Boo to the rescue
Greeted by a warm hug, followed by the spare car key I finally managed to unlock my car and retrieve my keys. I turned to give him his key back and he handed over a drink and snacks as he knew I hadn’t eaten or drank all day. I popped Piglet in my car as she is able to sleep better in the Merlin car seat than the Cybex in Mr Boo’s car.
Finally I was able to head home and 15 hours after I has left this morning I finally returned home. What a day!
Other than learning that I should always keep my keys in my hands. I did learn three things about Mr Boo…
- Without hesitation he was willing to drop everything and come to my rescue
- He never belittled me for my error, knowing that I was already giving myself a hard time over it
- He knew that I’d not eaten or drank all day so brought supplies for my journey home
Whilst it might not be politically correct to say that damsels in distress need a knight in shining armour. But sometimes you need one, luckily mine is ready to swoop in and rescue me.
UPDATE: It appears that I wasn’t to blame for the keys locking in the car. My car has a fault that whenever you close the passenger door it attempts to lock the car. So with no other doors open it managed to lock.
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