A happy accident

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Yesterday I was helping out at a community event all morning. Then in the afternoon my partner and I had booked a theatre trip to see a performance by a local amateur dramatics group. It was a bit of a busy day but the matinee performance was the only one we could make as things were happening in the evenings and the run was only three days. About twenty-five past twelve I texted my partner to ask what time we should set out, and he replied ’12:45 should be OK’. That seemed a bit sooner than I expected, and since by then it was 12:30 and I was at the village hall which is a ten minute walk home, I asked if he could pick me up en route. I grabbed a sandwich to eat in the car. So he set out, picked me up, and we were half way to our destination which was a small town about fifteen miles away, when he suddenly realised he had got his times muddled and we were actually an hour early! The show started at 2:30 pm. Well, that turned out to be a blessing in disguise! He stopped driving in such a rush. When we got there and found the car park was full, there was no complaining, swearing, or shouting at other drivers, we simply drove a bit further away and found a roadside space which was free to park with no time limit, so a bonus! We still had 40 minutes to spare so we were able to have a little look around the shops in the town centre, then we sat on a bench and ate the cakes I had bought at the morning fundraising event before getting to the theatre in good time. All very calm and pleasant and stress free. Honestly we should do this more often. After the show was over we left to walk back to the car. It had rained heavily while we were inside but luckily we missed that. We were rushing back to the car at top speed when suddenly I realised; I stopped and asked ‘Why are we in such a tearing hurry? It’s not raining, there’s no limit on the car park, and we don’t need to be back by an imminent deadline, what’s the rush?’ I guess he has just got into the habit. All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2025.