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Wow, I'm getting behind on the three hundred and sixty-odd days posts, aren't I? That's mostly through having no time at all. I was hoping to get a few fixed up in the Gimp and uploaded today, but life, as always, is what happens to your when you're busy making plans.

My girlfriend, Sarah, had a car accident this afternoon. Not an inconsiderable one, either. Now, before I go on, the really important bit is this: she's fine. Seriously. The car, at this stage, looks like it's going to be a write off (it's four years old and ended up on its side, a combination that doesn't usually work out all that well), but Sarah, aside from a bruise where the seatbelt was all seatbelty and a bit of a stiff neck is absolutely fine and dandy-oh. Partly because she's sometimes just about the luckiest person I know, and partly because she's hard as NORIs*.

But, grateful as I am for that, that's not the purpose of this post.

The purpose of this post is to say thank you, to several people.

Firstly, to PC Irvine and his colleagues of the Lancashire Constabulary. I name PC Irvine here because his was the only name I got (it's on the form that Sarah was given requesting that she produce her documents at the local cop shop in the next seven days), but he wasn't the first to respond. In fact, the first officer to respond lived just a few hundred yards away from the scene of the accident and was having his lunch at the time. I owe him a brew next time I see him.

Then, there's the eight or more firefighters that attended the scene. They'd received reports of "car on its side, driver trapped," which was technically true but somewhat inaccurate; she was stuck in the car, but was stood on the driver's side door with her head poking through the passenger side window, like a technologically advanced gopher who hasn't quite worked everything out yet. They were presently surprised to find that they had little to do other than lay down foam to cover the assored fluids that had started to drain from the upended engine.

Finally, and most importanly, to Ken and Gary, the paramedics who attended, looked after Sarah, checked her over and finally trundled her off to the hospital to be on the safe side. They were incredibly professional and helpful, both of them blokes who you'd happily sink a pint with in the pub. Gary, who was in the back of the ambulance with Sarah and I, is a nature photographer, and we somewhat bizarrely found ourselves talking lenses and tripods with him on the way to A&E. I intend to find out which station they're based at and send them something by way of thanks, once I've sorted out all the paperwork and the insurance and quite likely the new car.

The funny thing is that all the above people didn't have to do much. The police basically declared the thing a freak accident and said no further action would be taken. The fire fighters, like I said, didn't really need to do much about the car besides right it and clean up some of the diesel (Sarah was most annoyed to have bought £30 worth thereof shortly before the accident, though I was oddly pleased that it stayed in the tank). The paramedics and EMTs,  of which there were four altogether (and two ambulances) had very little to do once it became clear that no serious harm had come to Sarah. They did, at one point, have the air ambulance on standby (car on its side, persons trapped will get everyone to come running). As Gary himself said, it was horses for courses for every last one of them. And they were just as focused and professional as you'd expect them to be if they were attending a pile-up on the M6.

So thanks, guys. You all did a cracking job.

And, separately (and selfishly), this might curtail my photo-taking opportunities in the short term. I'll have to get inventive.

*NORI bricks (not to be confused with bricks made of nori, which aren't a particularly good building material) are bricks that, once upon a time, were made in Accrington, where both my other half and I grew up. The story goes that they were going to be called IRON bricks and that this was to be printed on the bricks used in the kiln chimney (I'll let you work out how you build the chimney for the kiln that you're going to be using to fire the bricks out of which you're going to build the chimney**.) but somehow it ended up getting printed the wrong way round, hence NORI instead of IRON. NORI bricks

** Yes, I know that's not how it worked. Hush.