Calm In A Crisis

Happy Friday!

I wanted to share a little personal adventure this morning with lots of learns!

Amy and I enjoyed the Harry Styles concert at Wembley last weekend along with my sister and friends. We had a superb night and headed for a dessert after to avoid the queues exiting the carpark. We got back to the car at 12am and upon driving away from our space my sister noticed a large pool of what looked like diesel under the car, as we drove out the carpark it started dripping heavily and the mileage gauge was rapidly dropping.

✔️🔧First learn - Use your resources! AI advised us to pull over in a safe space it had found and suggested to vacate the car due to the risk - we found a Tesco extra (closed) next to the stadium, pulled up and attempted to call AA (our breakdown service to get assistance).

✔️📞Second learn - If you have badged yourself up as the 4th emergency service answer the phone! - In times of crisis and stress speaking to a human being makes a huge difference. This did not happen and culminated in us using their app which was shocking and waiting in the carpark until 4am (far from ideal - 3 females alone for 4 hours).

✔️🚒Third learn - Think of those around you and scenario plan - We decided to call the emergency services as we felt it was unsafe to abandon the car with a diesel leak in a public place in the heat. Willesden Green Watch - you were brilliant. They used a lot of sand to make the area safe and even chatted with us about Harry Styles and had a picture with us all (not sharing on here as I looked awful at 3am)!

✔️🙏Fourth learn - Kindness is everything. Our Uber driver was lovely, gave me hand sanitiser as my hands were covered in grease whilst hiding the key for the AA (who eventually collected the car without us over 24 hours later). He dropped us safely back to my sisters at 4:30am.

✔️😆Fifth learn - Use your sense of humour. Whilst there were points I felt anxious and a little worried given we were alone for a long time. We used our humour to keep calm, measured and in control. My daughter says it was one of her top 10 life adventures of all time! She amazed me with how she dealt with it quite frankly. I wasn't expecting a 15 year old to be quite so patient - a big learn for me.

✔️🔋Sixth learn - Carry a spare battery pack for your phone if doing a long journey - we didn't - not all our phones lasted which didn’t help at all.

What I took from Friday night was how well we worked together as a trio to get ourselves out of a pretty tricky situation, how calm, resilient and patient we were, how kind and helpful so many people are and how important a human voice is in a crisis. Despite this all Harry Styles was worth it!

Have a super weekend and stay safe in the heat.