I wonder if I’ll even get there

The rain is beating down filling the pot holes

That my already injured tyres drop into.

Actually, not so much drop as clunk, thrunk, scrape, thud, bodoom.

I grimace and prepare for the blow out,

I lower the window just a little,

Not enough to let the rain in but enough to hear that dreaded sound

Of flumph flap, flumph flap,

A pancake of a tyre.

But I’m safe, just the spraying sploshing sound of driving on a wet road.

National Tyres come into sight and it looks quiet,

Hope I can be in and out quickly.

Looks can deceive; two other victims of the road stand before me

Dripping, dishevelled, trousers tie-dyed where the rain has soaked up and downwards.

So I will have to wait around an hour, they say,

If only I’d taken the short cut, I’d have been first in line.

But short cuts mean greater danger of flumph flap

With potholes as deep as caverns concealed by the murky dark rain water.

So I sit and wait, joining the other injured parties in the ‘Waiting Room’.

We sympathise and empathise telepathically

Mentally nodding at our combined resignation of being unable to avoid the potholes.

The man rummages through ancient dog-eared copies of ‘heat’ and ‘practical classics’,

The woman takes out her knitting #TrueStory

A navy blue jumper in the making I think.

I wonder idly if she knitted the chunky Icelandic wool cable cardi she was sporting.

No one says anything, there is no need,

None of us want to be here,

We’d all far rather be elsewhere leading our busy lives.

But National Tyres are glad to see us,

They don’t mind the potholes,

The flumph flap flumph flap is music to their ears.

One man’s poison….they say don’t they?

Magazine man ups and leaves, first in – first out,

Just me and the knitter.

But through the huge shop window, I can see more than the constant flow of traffic,

The sun is trying its best to break through the morning gloom,

The knitter has finished her jumper and she is next to leave,

National Tyres have fitted two new tyres,

I finished my poem.

So some things good have come of the potholes.