Some days...

Some days the Gorse Fox worries that perhaps he should have stayed in bed. Today found him heading for a conference about 50 miles east of Worcester. Leaving, with a colleague, at 07:45 he headed up the hill and onto the M5. Merging slickly with the traffic he accelerated up and merged to lane 2. All was well.

Or so he thought!

With rush hour traffic filling all lanes and the traffic moving at speed he sat chatting to his colleague, when there was a bang, a huge puff of blue smoke, and a horrible smell as the car attempted to swerve across the carriageway. Winding the window down slightly (to handle the smell) and steering to the hard shoulder it was clear that his trusty steed had just suffered a blowout in a back hoof.

Retrieving the spare from the boot, and trying to work out the tools, Gorse Fox and his lanky colleague started to consider the task ahead.

• Spare wheel - check.
• Jack - check.
• Tyre lever - check.
• Lockable wheel nut tool - check.
• Thingamy to release the wheel nut cover - ch... "How do you remove the wheel nut covers?". There was no obvious tool for this so GF phoned the garage (from memory) and woke up a very angry woman from Goring. He re-dialled and made her even more angry. He then looked up the number and got through to the garage. They explained where to find the "tool".

It was about this time that the Highways Agency patrol car arrived. Gorse Fox has rarely been happier to see these chaps. They put out safety cones and used their vehicle to provide the Gorse Fox cover whilst he completed the tyre change. Despite this there were still a couple of moments when he thought he'd be blown over by the wash of passing trucks.

Finally all was done, the Agency staff were thanked and the Gorse Fox and colleague completed their journey without further incident.

Checking in to the conference went smoothly and the Gorse Fox went to grab a coffee and find a quiet place to take a teleconference call. It was at this point that someone backed into him and knocked his coffee all over his hand and down his trousers.

Muttering to himself he went to take the call... to find that it had been cancelled.

Some days... eh!