Pot Hole Misery

Almost two years to the day since my last major car incident, its happened again.

Back in March 2016, my beloved Citroen C4 Picasso went bang en-route to Cornwall and we had a nightmare of no phone signal and having no clue as to where we had broken down, other than that we were on the A30.

Lessons learned from that day has meant that I am more aware of exactly where I am and yesterday afternoon, those skills were once again put to the test.

We were heading to Marwell Zoo for the opening of their new Tropical House when, less than 5 minutes from their door, I hit a pot hole.

I didn’t think that much of it initially and managed to avoid a second one just after, but we all commented we hit it with a bang.

Seconds later my steering wheel started wobbling and I knew we had done some serious damage and we limped into a pub car park……. I had a puncture.

Luckily, following the previous incident, we are AA members and we called them to come and help us and with an advised arrival time of over an hour, Hubby decided to wait with the car whilst I took the kids to Marwell so they didn’t miss out.

I was going to walk it with the kids, but it is all country roads around that area with no safe pavements, so we made the decision to call a taxi and I headed into the Queens Head pub to get a number.

I have to say a massive thank you to the locals, who kindly volunteered a lovely lady called Caroline, to take us up the road to save us paying over the odds for a taxi. The kindness of strangers really is alive and well!

Marwell was brilliant, their new Tropical House is stunning and the kids loved seeing the two-toed sloth hanging around, the cutest pygmy marmosets racing around their own island overlooking the largest fresh water fish tank in the country and the Asian brown tortoises roaming around and a plethora of birds flying around the building.

Sadly, the Java chevrotain (mouse deer) and the crocodile monitor lizard were not so keen to meet us that evening. Downstairs, in the interactive Discovery Zone, there are some fascinating displays where the kids loved looked at animal poo.

There are also huge screens on the wall which show us how the energy we need to power our modern lifestyles is generated and how alternative renewable forms of energy can help animals and humans alike.

We thoroughly enjoyed looking around but then the news came in that we were dreading……they could not fix my car and we needed to be recovered home which would take a good couple of hours.

I managed to get a taxi back to the pub where Hubby was waiting and he told me that not only had we burst a tyre, but we had damaged the wheel as well. We phoned my daughter Abbey who came to collect the kids to take them home so they didn’t have to wait for the recovery truck and typically they both arrived within minutes of each other.

As we speak I am awaiting recovery to the garage for the final assessment and our worry is that the suspension could be damaged as well as the wheel.

For now, our fingers are crossed that it is fixable and doesn’t cost the earth! I have reported the pothole and plan to head back to get some pictures to help our claim.

Have you successfully claimed for pothole damage?