The little things that matter

The little things that matter can be many and often not remembered but then there are some little things that really do matter. Apart from the obvious like telling your partner how much they mean to you, there are the ones that involve safety, like tyres and their pressures. Very romantic I hear you all ask, after such a romantic analogy to begin with, but I mean it. For weeks now, I have been promising myself the luxury of checking my tyre pressures and pumping up the tyres, a job I sincerely love,as you can all tell, however today I was all ready to do this small job and what happens?.... the heavens open with disastrous weather following. Now there is a particularly irritating and obnoxious forecourt attendant at the local garage who I despise and as I was about to drive into the forecourt to check my tyres, this demon from Hell appeared. I had no wish to bandy words with him and I headed off on my merry way. The tyres seemed to get lighter and lighter and I convinced myself that I needed a new foot pump as my old one had bitten the dust and had gone off to meet its manufacturer in the ether above. Well you are all ahead of me, I reached my destination in heavy rain to find that there was little air left in the tyres, how had I managed it, low speed, sensible driving and a fear that I had been stupid......VERY STUPID so I resolved to change my ways when it comes to cars. On the way home I invested in a new foot pump and this time carefully pumped up each tyre in turn, by the end of the week I will have two new tyres fitted on the car and the other two next month. This is a salient lesson to us all. NEVER put off what you can do today especially if it might involve your life, the risks are just NOT worth it. Sometimes bad weather can make one appreciate the value of life and the need to modify one's behaviour in such challenging road conditions. It was a lesson in humility to me and it has made me think far more objectively now about the future and the trauma caused to my loved ones if anything more serious had happened to me. Stay safe everyone and remember to check your tyre pressures weekly, they could just save your life!!!