Highway to hell...

My car on fire... (I had saved my camera from the car so I took these images)

Stopping traffic... literally!

When I decided to start up the blog again, the intention was to give people an insight into what goes on behind the scenes. I never thought it would be this dramatic... I posted recently about how my Dad and I had been working really hard to assemble all the Blanket Posters ready for our fundraising effort for Blanket. Well, only two days later, with more than 350 new posters ready to go, I loaded up my station wagon with boxes and set off down the highway for the two-hour drive to Melbourne. I was over half-way when my car started to decelerate quickly, the instruments on the dashboard flapped weirdly and a blue warning light flashed on. I pulled to the side of the road and then noticed smoke streaming from the bonnet. I leapt out of the car and flagged down passing motorists. Although one man produced a fire extinguisher, it was no good - the car was quickly ablaze and, within 15 minutes, was reduced to a smoking shell.

Firefighters extinguishing the car...

My car being taken away on a tow truck
You can see from the pictures how lucky I was to get out without any injuries. I was grateful that passing motorists stopped to help me, managing to save some of my belongings from my car before it all went up. Luckily for me, the first thing I saved was my laptop, which contains all of Blanket (and therefore my life!) As my hard drive was also in the car, I would have lost everything. Unfortunately I couldn't save the boxes of Blanket posters, as we were concerned the car would explode. Sadly they just fuelled the fire even more : (
Although I lost a few possessions, and all the hard work by Dad and myself, I'm lucky that I was able to save anything at all.


The aftermath... 


...and all that was left of my Blanket Posters : (
For a few days afterwards, I was in shock and feeling sorry for myself. This was a major blow and setback for me, especially as the posters were meant to be used as a fundraiser to help me continue producing Blanket. 

A couple of days later, I woke up to find a huge pile of folded posters. My Dad had been up for hours folding them!! The sight rallied me and we spent the next couple of days folding and glueing more posters. It was a great chance for us to bond as we sat chatting and assembling the posters and it made me realise how lucky I am to have such a supportive family.

So I'm happy to say we are now we're back on track for our Blanket fundraising effort - the posters will be available in the shop to buy - so if you love Blanket then please support us by buying a poster (and rewarding all my Dad's hard work!)
~ Bec