I started my day by picking up fellow Wessex Wishes Committee Members, Jenny Bale and Judy Hiscoke from their respective homes at 8.15 am and 8.30 am and then travelling to Longdown Dairy Activity Centre in Lyndhurst for 10.00 am to meet 11 very excited very special children and Donna Stanley and 7 other adults from Heatherlands School in Parkstone.

The three of us had arrived early because there were no traffic queues anywhere and therefore we decided to have a ‘mooch’ around Longdown’s rather enticing farm shop. Where I bought a delicious looking steak and kidney pie and half a dozen duck eggs.

The children arrived all anticipating a fun day.

First of all we walked around to the barn where many hungry cute looking calves were waiting for us to feed them bottles of milk. We then wondered around to another barn where many hungry ‘kids’ were also waiting to be bottle fed. Several of the children really enjoyed these activities.

Donna then led us round to another barn where we all got to hold the sweetest baby chicks all of whom were wrapped in cloth so that they were easy for the children to cuddle/hold. Guinea pigs were then placed in small containers to enable the children to stroke them. They saw the most beautiful bunnies of all different sizes and colours. Around the farm were lots of other animals such as long haired goats, ducks, chickens and amazing breeds of pigs.

The children then headed off for a tractor ride and then to eat their lunches and enjoy the children’s fabulous play area.

What a wonderful time they were all experiencing.

Jenny, Judy and I then left the Centre to head home except about five miles into our journey I experienced a flat tyre and had to quickly find somewhere safe for us to stop as there were no lay-bys and the only place to stop was a farmers gated area in the middle of the forest on the very busy A35 Lyndhurst Road. Now the real fun began.

I called the RAC at about 12.21 who advised me that they wouldn’t be able to help us until between 3.40 pm and 5.30 pm so we just had to sit tight until they arrived lol

Luckily we all had water and I rummaged around in the car and found a large bag of rather tasteless Hummus chips in a bag that none of us could open with our hands. Luckily for two very hungry passengers I had a first aid box in my boot which included a small pair of scissors, some sugar free sweets etc etc

We amused ourselves by talking about different experiences we had all endured over our many years, feeding grass to some rather lovely new forest ponies and having to ‘pee’ in the middle of prickly gorse bushes where we couldn’t be seen. We had the cooked meat pie in the boot and six duck eggs and we were discussing how we would eat the pie if necessary and try our skills at cooking and eating the duck eggs if necessary lol This all went on for not the expected 3-5 hours but 8 hours.

It had turned out that the RAC whom Barry and I had full membership for including tyres for

at least 15 years had only two out of eight vans working in a 50 mile radius and had left us ‘old ladies’ without any food, water or facilities in the middle of the new forest with the cold and darkness fast approaching. We were beginning to feel a little scared!!

Thankfully Barry was around and came and picked up Judy who had by this time been feeling very cold. In the meantime a young taxi driver called ‘Sam Askira’ from United Taxi’s stopped and asked Jenny and I if we were ok and needed anything as he’d seen us there at 12.30 and was worried about us. How absolutely fantastic was that and when we explained what had happened he gave us bottles of water and his business card to ring should we need anything or further help. I rang the RAC again after having received another message that we would now have to wait till between 10.30 pm and 1.30 am for help. luckily we’d been able to charge our phones in Barry’s Discovery otherwise we would have felt very vulnerable.

Anyway after telling them that we were going to warn other customers about our bad experience they sent a lovely gentleman to help us. Barry picked up Jenny to take her home and my car was sorted and I drove it to Hypermotive in Winton for service the next morning. I eventually got home at 10.00 pm after Barry followed me to Hypermotive and then home from where the RAC man changed my wheel.

Thank you to Jenny and Judy who both refused to leave me on my own for all those hours, Barry for all his support, Chris the RAC Mechanic and ‘Sam’ from United Taxi’s for his care and attention.

A rather fun silly day in the life of three senior citizens who felt like sixteen year olds on this unexpected experience; my sports wheels will now be changed to normal wheels so that we don’t have to worry about another experience of being left roadside by the RAC for eight and what could have been 13 hours just because of a flat tyre !!

Loads of love from

Judy, Jenny and Frances

Wessex Wishes Ltd