Many thanks for the best wishes. Its certainly been a different kind of birthday today.
My wife had a serious car accident last Wednesday. Some idiot, double the alcohol limit at 3.30 in the afternoon, came round the bend on the wrong side of the road and wiped out my wife's car. She had absolutely nowhere to go and her car was pushed 30 feet back down the road and into the hedge. My four year old son was in the back and fortunately escaped uninjured but it took the fire brigade 45 mins to cut my wife free.
My son has been a real star, telling the police his and mummys name and that they were on the way to pick his sister up from school. He went in the ambulance by himself and waited at the hospital until Grandad came and picked him up. I had a three hour drive home after the police finally phoned me.
My wife has been in intensive care for four days, had nine hours on the operating table but now, thankfully, only has the broken bones to heal - left leg/knee, left arm in three places and right elbow smashed into pieces.
Needless to say, the other driver, in his Landrover Discovery, was uninjured.
So tonight I took my cards, a cake and my son and daughter into the hospital to have a small family birthday party. I certainly won't forget birthday 43 in a hurry!!