Something rather bizzarre happened to me yesterday - I had a car accident  

Not so bizzarre or even freaky you might think, lots of people have accidents, particularly in the winter months, but this was different owing to the fact that no one was actually driving either car involved.

Yesterday, just after lunch, Jane and I went to visit Joanne and Keith in Ramsbottom - Joanne just had a knee replacement opearation last week, so is not hugely mobile and still suffering the after effects of major surgery.   Ramsbottom is a market town just north of Bury, and is a hilly, rural place, and at this time of year is also cold and icy.  It also has a schoolboy comedy name, but that's beside the point

So, we arrive at about 1:15, and park the car in a little cul-de-sac opposite as the path outside Joanne and Keith's has snow/ice on it and looks a bit treacherous.  The road we parked on happens to be a shady road which is also quite steeply uphill, get the flowers out of the car boot, lock the car and then go in for a chat and a cup of coffee.

About 5 minutes after we arrive, I hear next door's car alarm going off - and being a nosy person, I stand up to see what's happened.  Its at this point I notice that our car is no longer parked where it was, and is now blocking the road having slid backwards down the hill, coming to rest in the side of Joanne and Keith's neighbours car . 

Its at this point that you start to wonder what went wrong - did I put the handbrake on?   I ran out to the road, unlocked the car, and found that the handbrake was still securely on, and thinking back after we'd arrived, we got stuff out of the boot, so would have noticed if the car was staring to roll, owing to the fact that it would have flattened us first. 

Next door were fairly stoic about the whole thing - apparently its not the first time this kind of accident has happened, and thinking about it, if their car hadn't been parked where it was, there's a good chance our car would have ended up in their living room.

Our car doesn't seem to be very badly damaged, the rear bumper is a bit out of shape, and the light cluster has been damaged (but the lights still all work), however the Rav 4 we connected with doesn't look particlarly well with an Audi shaped dent in the drivers door.

In another ironic twist, it also turns out that one of the next door neighbours is a teacher at Emily and Georgia's school.  Hopefully their grades won't suffer too much...