[Cyclefrance]

Confession time for me also.

Mrs CF was busy painting emulsion on the bedroom walls and was close to running out. I offered to go to the local DIY to pick up a gallon can for her - nice light pinky colour. I usually take my old work-horse Passat for these sort of jobs, but being a sunny day, I decided to jump in the Audi Cabrio, drop the roof to enjoy the sunshine, and use that instead.

I knew there was risk attached to doing this, but so long as I took it steady and didn't break too hard I was sure I'd be OK. Wrong decision.

I bought the paint - the tin even had those little extra retaining clips all round the lid. I placed the tin in the front passenger well where I could see it and moved the seat as far forward and as close to the tin as I could to improve stability, and off I went.

No problems. I was going slow and steady. I pulled up smoothly at the T-junction near the DIY place where I had to turn right. As we drive on the left, this entailed crossing to the far side of the road to get into the left side lane. Luckily the road had a centre lane for traffic turning from the left into the road I was in taking those cars across my path.

The road to my right was completely clear - no problem there. Two cars were coming from the left. The first, a VW Golf, was in the far lane and clearly going straight on. The second, a Volvo, moved into the centre lane to turn into my road. He slowed down and signalled to me to go out in front of him, so I acknowledged him and started to move out.

I'd been looking at the Volvo driver all this time and turned my head now to the front, only to see that at the last second the VW driver had decided that he didn't want to go straight on at all, but actually had meant to turn right into my road. He was now coming across and directly in front of me!

Annoying , but no real problem, I thought, as I was only do 5 mph, so I braked quickly to ensure I stopped and he waved thanks to me, smiled, and drove past me and into the road I was leaving.

What he coudn't see was the slow-motion action of a gallon tin of pink emulsion tipping forwards and hitting the floor. Then, as it hit the floor, discarding the retaining clips around its lid, which were suitably and immediately followed by the lid itself, as if chasing after them!.

Time then decided to come out of slow motion and I was aware of the front passenger well filling rapidly with a gallon of pink emulsion! Panic! What to do - If I touched the tin I would get paint on my hands and then without doubt I would get paint everywhere else as well!

I watched not knowing at that stage and for about five seconds that seemed like five minutes what I should do. My emotions were telling me to chase after the VW driver to give him a piece of my mind for causing this accident. My common-sense side was luckily assessing the situation differently. The paint was being contained inside the well. There was a strengthening bar ridge running laterally across the car stopping the paint going anywhere else. Home was 5 minutes away, so that was the place to head. The sight of pink emulsion reflecting gently in sunlight, however, wasn't the calming influence it might have been in other circumstances, but I somehow managed to keep cool and to get home without further mishap.

Mrs CF wasn't amused! After some suitable discussion about the incident, which I think resulted in her going inside the house slamming (make that welding) the back door shut as she did so, and me obsessively muttering obscenities under my breath, there was nothing left but to proceed with baling pink emulsion out the car well.

First job was to rescue the tin. That went OK - a bit messy but nothing to add to the present chaos. Then it was a case of scooping out the paint as much as I could and returning it to the tin. Amazingly, I managed to recover about three-quarters of the tin. I suppose, that if looking for that elusive silver-lining to the event. the only good thing about it all was that it was emulsion, so water soluble - I could now set to cleaning the well out properly.

Two hours later, with bowls of water first, and eventually hose going full blast going on the mats, I had more or less cleaned them so that they were just slightly off their original beige/oat colour. In the end, as the sun set, there was just one awkward splash inside the car that just wouldnt budge, but that was up and behind the botteom of teh dashboard, so I left it there.

So there you have it - it happened to me even with the lids on. To cap it all, though, our neighbour owns a paint store - he was away at the time, otherwise I would have bought it from him. The main difference then would have been that he ALWAYS makes sure that any tin of paint being transported by a customer in their own car, is secured inside a clear and water-tight plastic bag first.

Now why didn't I think of that....?