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Another busy weekend at Liz's. Saturday morning was spent shifting stuff out of storage in the blistering heat, then getting it all home and trying to find enough space to dump it in. Then we went to B&Q to get some stuff. The cold tap in the kitchen and the one in the bathroom both leaked so we went out to get some special bits of plastic that fit into the tap and stop them leaking. Whoever designed them clearly didn't have Liz's taps in mind though and so they wouldn't go in despite my best efforts. Instead we decided to fit new taps (the old ones looked a bit manky anyway).

So there I was, head under the kitchen sink, water dripping all over my face, sink wrench in one hand and monkey wrench in the other... Considering I've never done any plumbing before I think I did a good job. The new taps look good and there's not been a single leak since. Next will be the bathroom taps as they are knackered: The previous occupant managed to fit a washer that's bigger than the entrance to the tap, so I couldn't get it back out again. God knows how they got it in there. On inspecting the inside of the tap it was also damaged anyway so new taps are on the cards. It should be easier this time though as access isn't quite such an issue.

After all the tap-fitting, carrying stuff, driving places, painting and collecting of carpet we decided it was essential we had a beer. Off we went to Liz's new local. It was grim. We left the local straight away and went to the Lock Stock in town. Far nicer. Had a few pints of good old London Pride and then returned home. Drank some wine (bad idea after beer) and then went to bed.

Sunday morning I woke up with a slightly wooly head. Liz was in a much worse state though, and so the planned carpet-laying didn't happen as Liz clearly wasn't going to be up to it. Instead we had a lazy afternoon in town.

The journey back was better than I had expected. It seems that every time I take the new route back I always take a wrong turn on the A417. Last week I revised my poorly written instructions to try and prevent this from happening, but I couldn't find them while I was in the car so I simply did it from memory and - what do you know - I only went wrong once and that was in Ledbury just after I'd finally overtaken two slow moving caravans and was so relieved that I wasn't paying attention to the sign for the roundabout. Realised my mistake straight away, turned around and got stuck behind the same two caravans. GAH!

On the A44 I was doing a good speed (60-70 Mph) as I rounded a slight bend in the road and there was a stream of traffic on the other side of the road that wasn't moving very fast with someone overtaking. They were cutting it a bit fine, but nothing too drastic. The real problem lay with the complete twat behind them who really shouldn't have been overtaking. The slow moving car that they were overtaking obviously had common sense - they had their hand on the horn trying to tell the pillock to get onto the right side of the road. At 60-70 Mph the chances of surviving a head-on collision are very close to 0. Obviously I slammed the brakes on; it was my only choice in the situation. There wasn't even anywhere to swerve to.

In life or death situations we all react a little strangely. Many people claim their lives "flash before their eyes". Mine didn't. In fact nothing went through my head at all. There was just me and a pair of rapidly approaching headlights. At the last moment they swerved in front of the car at the front of the queue of traffic very narrowly missing me. Then the front car passed, their hand still very firmly on the horn, and then the rest of the traffic.

For a while I just free-wheeled, my mind still completely blank. And then I got scared. Some complete twat just came within inches of possibly killing me, at the very least severly injuring me, possibly injuring one or two of the drivers of the other cars. They'd have definitely written off my car. I was miles from anywhere, it would have taken a while to get me to a hospital. If they'd hit me then my parents would have been receiving an unpleasant phone call from the hospital with either bad news or very bad news. They wouldn't have even had Liz's number to ring her, my parents number they could only have worked out from my driving license. My parents don't even have her number. In fact I am now planning on putting a card in my wallet with my details just in case the worst should happen.

But the strangest thing was the whole detatchment from it that I felt.