I parked the car

and started hauling grocery shopping out of it. Distress noises from another vehicle engine caused me to turn and watch two young men getting their car stuck in the cul de sac outside my house, it's tough to turn a car around there, being on a steep slope, even if you manage the manoeuvre it ruins the clutch, residents just reverse themselves out and back all the way down the road. These boys were university freshers, Boy 1 had a smart new car and just passed his test, he got out of the drivers seat so that Boy 2 who passed last week could show him how to do it, he made some weedy revs, took the handbrake off - the car lurched forward and stuck itself into a lampost with a smashing big sound

Stunned Silence    

the boys got out of the car 


One of our neighbours is a huge man who really loves Jesus, he normally wears a dayglo gilet and carries a placard but today he was without these accessories, so the boys though he was a proper grown up, the Jesus Man was pointing at the car, telling them how it was eternally bonded to that post now and he was starting to get a bit loud about The End of Times, the boys looked close to tears.  They couldn't see me because I am a woman, I said would you like me to get it out?   Boy 1 finally spotted me and said Yes Please Sweetheart in the way that men used to speak to secretaries in the '70s so I got in the driving seat, revved it off the lampost and Evel Knievelled backwards to the end of the road -  that's how a Sweetheart drives