Hi all. Remember the brand new car I got just about two weeks ago? Well it ain't so new anymore because yesterday it unfortunately got her tail damaged. Some guy didn't notice I slowed down a bit to prevent a mother and child from taking a dive on the hood and he simply bumped into me. First of all, I'm okay. Or at least I think I am, I'll get back on that. Later. For now lets assume I am, just for comfort. My comfort mostly. Thanks ... :- In Holland there seems to be a growing trend of roundabouts instead of normal road crossings. Sometimes I think they get a huge discount for them, they must. They pop-up everywhere! Some actually do work a lot better than standard crossings with traffic lights but some just don't. For me it's the smaller ones that could/should have been avoided. When it comes to roundabouts it's the bigger the better. And no they are not as scary like some people think, just follow the rules and there's hardly ever a problem. When there is a problem it's seldom on the roundabout, but more often on the on and off lanes. And that's basically because not all of them have the same rules in terms of who has right of way and when they have it. Cars vs bikes, that sort of stuff. The main reason I think it comes to crashes on that point is that then everything comes together. You need to check for traffic coming at you from just about all sides, from the back, the right and crossing bicycles in front of you. When you're on a bigger one the time you have to skip from incoming traffic from the right to crossing bicyclists in front of you is longer than on a smaller roundabout. Simple as that. And that's where the driver of the grey Opel (Vauxhall for foreign readers) Vectra lost it. He just missed me from his view for a couple of seconds while still rolling on behind me, so when I slowed down he didn't notice instantly and hit the back of the car. Our luck is that on these small roundabouts the speeds are very slow so it wasn't more than a slight bump. Now this is not to be bragging about it but I've been in quite a number of car accidents and this one has been the smallest one yet. And that's a good thing, trust me. The one before this one wasn't quite that 'nice and easy' trust me. The (young) guy that hit my car was so upset I felt more sorry for him than for my car as that's likely to get fixed anyway. He just kept asking if I was okay and telling me how immensely sorry he was. When he got out of his car he was looking even more pale than I am and I promise you: that is pale. I tried my best to tell him I was fine and that he didn't need to worry about me or feel bad about the accident. Mainly because I was sure he didn't just plough in the back of me to 'see what happens' or something stupid like that. I can only hope he feels a little better about it, or at least worry a little less. Anyway, after exchanging the necessary credentials we both went on our way. I was underway to Wageningen to visit my sister and her husband ;-) my Bro in law Stefan. We had a pleasant evening, chatting up on things, making some small plans for their moving the weekend after this one. After all they then have a refrigerator for me (one of them with the freezing part in the bottom half, and the cooling bit on top) which needs to get picked up preferably as soon as possible after they get the keys of the house because then the new kitchen can be put in. Next Wednesday I'm going over there again to see their newly acquired house before they start 'rebuilding' the place. I haven't seen it in real yet, only the pictures so I'm pretty curious about how it looks for real. I'll tell you when I get back, promise. The only downside of meeting with them is that we don't see each other as much as I would like so when we do we need to (or at least are able to) chat for hours. Which is nice, but takes us in to the night quite easily. I'll sleep a bit more tonight I guess, these things simply happen and should. Can't be bothered about bedtimes at these moments. Take care folks, I'll see you tomorrow.