a wedding, a car crash, and 25 pies...

Let me tell you a story. It involves a girl (me), a wedding (my friend's sister Karma's) and a stretch of road between Victoria and Cobble Hill (the malahat).
It begins early, 6am to be specific, the girl wakes up and prepares for her 7:30 shift. Her hand is still slightly swollen from the wasp sting she received on thursday afternoon. (it's now saturday). She dresses, eats breakfast, and is on her way. everything is on track. Her 4 hour shift goes by fast, nothing too exciting, she's happy to be out of there by 11:30. She gets back home, showers, eats lunch, packs for her overnight stay in Cobble Hill, and writes down the directions to the farm and hall where the wedding is taking place - she is to be there for 2:30. It's just about 1:30pm. She loads her stuff into her bronco (affectionately dubbed Ticki), and is off. It's a 45 min drive.
The weather hasn't been very nice so far, heavy rain, wind, clouds, she's hoping that the ceremony won't be forced inside.
Her biggest worry is the puddles on the road, and her windshield wipers sliding off (as they like to try occasionally).
So she's driving along listening to a cd, hoping she finds the right turn off, when she has to pull up suddenly because traffic has stopped. "What's this?" she thinks, as she shifts into first and then comes to a complete halt. Perhaps construction? But there have been no signs. She's hoping they'll start moving soon.
Traffic is moving, but it's only inching along, and she comes around a corner only to see a line of vechicals stretching as far as she can see. Cars are turning around. It's 1:56pm.
After about another 10 minutes, the girl realizes that she should probably turn on the radio if she wants to find out what the congestion is all about. So, she puts on the Q fm, just as the announcer says: "If you're stopped on the Malahat, there's been a head on collision just near bramberton, and the whole road is blocked. Traffic has come to a complete stop and this was nearly an hour ago. So if you've got a wedding in a half a hour, chances are you're going to be late." (well, It was pretty much what he said - he did mention a wedding at 3pm)

Every once in a while the line inches forward as vechicals (or their drivers I should say) decide that the wait isn't worth it and turn around. 2:30 rolls around, she's late. 3pm clugs by, and she's not going to make the ceremony.
3:45pm and she's hoping that she'll make it to the reception.
Needless to say, she was on that road for three hours. Thank goodness for a couple plumbs, and apple, and the novel, "Life of Pi".

Finally, at around 4:48 the line starts moving, so she's hoping she make it to the reception on time to help serve the dinner.
But, the directions she'd written down were for heading first to the ceremony site, and then heading to the reception from there, so she's not confident where to turn. And sure enough, she turns too early and ends up on an unfamiliar road cursing herself. Finally she pulls over at a little store near Shwanigan Lake Village and asks for directions. And it's here that the stress of being late finally takes it's toll. She can feel the tears well up as she's trying to understand the woman's directions. As soon as she gets back into the bronco, yes, the tears start a flowing.
By the time she finds the hall, (yet a couple more wrong turns later) she thinks she's got them under control. It's just 5:30. But, as soon as she gets out and starts walking towards the bride's father there they go again. Fortunately he's a kind man who gave her a big hug and told her not to worry that everything was okay, and they were just glad she'd made it. He ushered her into the hall and over to his wife who promptly took her to the ladies room (as the tears were still gushing) an helped to get the girl calmed down.

to be continued...