A nearly wrecked retirement do.

Ok this is what happened on Thursday. It was the day of P's retirement do at work. In our car were all the drinks for the reception, apart from some that were cooling in our fridge. We'd arranged that I would take them in about 11.30. Ok fine.

I decided it would be a good idea to clear some space in the fridge as we'd probably have some leftovers. At the bottom of the fridge there was some rhubarb that had definitely seen better days so I decided to take it over to the compost heap. So I went outside, locking the door behind me, got my scooter from its shed, scooted over to the compost heap, had a quick scoot round the garden, put my scooter back in the shed, padlocked the shed, went to open the back door...

No keys.

Keys still in scooter. Scooter key, shed key, house keys all on same key ring on my scooter. In the shed. In the locked shed.

So this was the situation: in two and a half hours there would be P's retirement reception at which people were expecting to have drinks as well as food. These drinks were currently either locked in our car or locked in our house and I couldn't get into either. I hadn't got my phone with me. I couldn't walk far enough to get help.


The horrible reality that I was about to wreck P's carefully planned reception was hitting me rather forcefully. I was imagining him just waiting for me and I didn't arrive and everyone else was arriving and there were no drinks.

As well as this I faced the possibility of spending the whole day sitting in our drive.


There were only two things I could do:


1) Pray
2) Shout


So I did both. I prayed, rather fervently. And I shouted as loud as I could in the direction of our neighbours.


Nothing happened. There was no sign of anyone. I kept praying and kept shouting.


Nothing. 


Time was going past. An hour. An hour and a half. Me sitting in our drive praying and shouting.


Finally I said to God 'I'm asking you to get me out of this and get someone to help me and I believe you will because you've got me out of so many messes before so I'm going to trust you and praise you.'


So I sat there alternately praising and thanking Him and shouting as loud as I could 'Help!!!'


Then... I saw a woman coming towards the fence. 'I thought it was a cat making that noise,' she said.

10 minutes or so later our neighbour was round with some bolt-cutters. The padlock was wrecked but I had the keys!


Thank you!!!!


A quick shower and I got to P's work just as the caterers arrived.


I must admit I was a bit stressed and my job as the drinks pourer was a bit hampered by the fact I couldn't get the tops off so had to keep asking people to do it for me but the reception went very well.


Lots of people came. The food was really good. P's boss who's really nice had literally come straight from the birth of his second grandson and made a really nice speech. P did a good speech as well. They presented him with a brass sundial. There were a lot of quite emotional goodbyes.


Then that was it.


He's left work.


And I've put my scooter key on a separate keyring.