23rd August 2024

Moving to the countryside without a car has its problems. In Bristol Uber would get you where you were going and there would be no problem with the return journey with plenty of available vehicles. Here in rural Worcestershire we took an Uber taxi to the local Garden Centre and Retail Outlet – no problem, driver at our front door within five minutes.

Coming home however was altogether different: Uber took half an hour of holding us on line and then said it could not find a driver. Phoning a local taxi firm produced the response that they had no car available for three hours, so we resorted to coffee and cakes and then tried again this time aided by the Garden Centre’s help desk. A number of very helpful phone calls either produced no reply, many of the local firms having only a single car. At last one said that a vehicle could be found but only in an hour and a half’s time. What to do? – more coffee, or more shopping, but then, when we were becoming increasingly desperate, the lady behind us in the queue said, ‘Where are you trying to go to?’ and we told her, to which she replied, ‘That’s easy; I live there’.

Rather simple-mindedly that came as an answer to prayer, and within half an hour we were sitting comfortably at home offering thanks not only to the stranger who came to our aid but also for answered prayer. Now the lady who saved the day for us was in the queue because she had lost her credit card, so in a way her misfortune was part of our salvation, and we certainly prayed that her finances would soon be put right. For us the warning was to give more thought to about how we were going to get home before setting out, something we never had to do in our Bristol days!

John Briggs