2 in one day.... & 112

Two posts in one day...... wow I am doing well...lol
Just needed to pop in and say it is amazing how one's day turns out....

Today while I was driving into town to help cut out the blocks for the quilt we are making for the bushfire survivors, on a road I have travelled many, many times over the years and have always known the bad spots and bumps in the road.... today for some reason I was going a lot slower than normal.... not sure why but I was....
I only had Nikayla in the back thankfully but not in her normal car seat (which is definitely going back in the car tomorrow when it dries before I go anywhere else).......
Within a split second as I was meeting a couple of cars on a bend the back car all of a sudden spun around a few times and started travelling backwards across the road toward me...... it seemed to happen in slow motion and seemed so unreal but real at the same time...... the car continued to come backwards towards me....... not sure whether it was my slower speed or just good luck but the car missed me by just millimetres if that and slammed into the bracken and trees on the side of the road..........
I just sat there for I don't know how long....stunned.... unsure on what had just happened and what I was going to find.. I was shaking like a leaf..... I told Nikayla to stay put, put my hazards on, as we were on the bend and cars seem to fly around the corner and with the long weekend and the folk festival this weekend there is extra traffic on the road, then I went to see if the person in the car was okay..
she was thankfully getting out as I approached and surprisingly was quite calm and level headed..... I on the other hand was shaking so much I had dropped my mobile and the back and battery had fallen out......duh.. I had always thought myself to be quite calm and capable of handling a situation but today I found out differently... the lady was in her mid 60s approximately and didnt get flustered at all.... she calmly told me she had no mobile service so couldn't ring anyone and as she had travelled from the top of the state to almost the bottom she was alone..... stupid me stumbled around looking for our local police phone number..... ended up ringing hubby to come and help...lol this lady on the other hand had the ability to remember a number she had been told earlier for an emergency if you have no mobile service.... it was 112....... and it worked..... I had never heard of this before... you just dial 112 and you are put through to emergency......000 I think ... whilst she was doing this quiet a number of cars sped past us.... we were not a metre off the roadside and only 1 or 2 slowed down or stopped........unbelievable......
hey we are out in the country here and we help out each other when in trouble but today the traffic was not local...... so the few that did stop briefly didn't even ask if we were okay but just drove off...... after I checked the lady was okay and not hurt I moved my car to the other side of the road which just happens to be our local fire shed so it was safe and then went back and checked on the lady..... we both looked at where she had come from and how lucky she had been.... she missed by mere millimetres 2 road signs and a power pole and me....... the skid marks all tell the story......how she managed to thread her way between without hitting anything is unreal and all going backwards... she did manage to take out the small telstra phone cable thingy though which only left a small dent in her front bumper...... the only damage the car sustained apart from the accumulation of a lot of bracken underneath her car and a few scratches.....couldn't believe it.... the bracken she hit first must have softened her impact and probably saved her.. my DH and another local friend came to the rescue and managed to pull her out whilst I slowed oncoming traffic and warned them as DH had to pull the car out across the road..... needless to say our local police never turned up but police from the next town turned up after we had pulled her car out and they just made sure we were all okay, took statements and questioned her and as it was purely an accident let us go on our way....
I do hope that this lady is okay tonight and not suffering any after effects.. I hope she enjoys her weekend at the folkie festival and doesn't dwell on what happened today..
I know she was just starting to consider all the what ifs just before the police arrived... as she said it just happened so quickly for her..it was in no way her fault........ all she did was get out in the gravel on the side of the road slightly on the bend and that was all it took for her car to spin around... she wasn't speeding, she just hit the gravel verge at a bad point in the bend and that was it......it can be a tricky bend but as I have been travelling it forever I guess I know the road and its faults and maybe take it for granted but not anymore..........

I have learnt two things today...
firstly is that it only takes a split second and things can change dramatically.. it could have so easily been much worse today but wasn't.............
and secondly and one that I will remember and I really think should be public knowledge and should be advertised or even pre keyed into mobile phones and that is the number 112 for in an emergency when you have no mobile service........ this knowledge could possibly help save someone else's life in the future.. who knows.......

Hug the ones you love and tell them so...
take care.

where is time going..

I can't believe another 2 months have gone by again....... time is really flying past us lately and the first term of the school year is almost over.....

We have been rather busy with the start of the school year and all the other sporting interests of our children and farm life in general so haven't really been too near a sewing machine for a little while......

I have however managed to make a couple of glass cases/playstation case bags...lol they have a spring based opening on them so nothing falls out.. along with a little carry handle.

Both my younger girls were recipients of one each for their psps and an extra one for the one who wears glasses for her own glasses..hehe and also one was gifted to my mum for a belated birthday gift..

I have also made 3 of these bags which have been sent off to a quilter in the Victorian bushfire area along with some knitted items which are all going to those who have lost so much already. The bags will be used as stash bags and filled with fabric and accessories for other quilters who have lost their stashes. All the knitted items have been handed out to help those in need now. I am lucky enough to have contacts on the ground so to speak who can get items of need to those in need rather quickly. I just pray that those of us in Victoria are now over the fire season, especially after the horrendous day we experienced last Tuesday.

The winds we got here were equivalent to a cyclone 1 strength and cut us off from our local town with trees downed on the roads which could not be cleared until the winds abated as it was too dangerous, trees were continually falling all over the area, the dust storms cut visibility to almost zero and was very eerie.. luckily for us all fires that started in the area were very quickly and aggressively attacked by the local firies... one good thing to come out of Tuesday is we all have enough firewood for the winter ahead.. and we got RAIN... yay..... being in rural Vic we rely on tank water for our survival and have not had rain of any sort since December..... the rain started off Tuesday night with a bit of drizzle but by Wednesday we had real rain...... such a fantastic sound to hear the rain on our roof again......and running into our empty tanks..... lets all hope we don't get too much more of the hot, windy days and fires we have seen since February..... even though we have had rain the land is still very dry and it still would not take much for a fire to take hold again...... we still have probably 7 weeks before we can relax.......

Our other lot of news is DS1 moved out of home mid January, much against his mum's advise lol with the economic downturn....... but he had to go out and experience life..... he was advised 2 weeks ago that he and another apprentice at his work were being laid off....... that seems to be the story everywhere around here at the moment.. so after a fortnight of speaking with different people about different strategies, as he is still completing his apprenticeship, he has decided to move home...lol esp as he now can't afford to rent and pay off a loan on no income.... we think at this stage he will be allowed to finish the schooling part of his apprenticeship by attending 'school' once a week and have his workplace side of his apprenticeship put on hold until things pick up... he is going to work for us here on the farm and we are all just hoping that some how we all survive financially..... we have put up for sale a couple of vehicles and also sold off our heifers and now it is just a wait and see what happens with the markets, it is out of our hands but we will get there......

I have been spending a lot of my nights knitting and have a bit of a stash of completed items which I will take pics of later and update on my other blog for those interested. I have joined an online group call Knit4charities which is a really great and inspiring group who does an amazing job of helping out charities here in Australia with in kind donations of goods. I have gained a few new contacts for charity goods to be donated to. It is such a good feeling to know that you are helping out those in real need and that the items are actually getting to the people who really need them.

I am off this afternoon to help cut out blocks for a QS quilt my local craft group are making for a raffle with all proceeds going to the bushfire victims here in Victoria.. as we only meet on a monthly basis now the majority of the work will be done at our homes and pieced together when we meet... so I can see that will be keeping me busy also...lol

Take care all and I hope it won't be soo long before I update again..hehe no promises though