WE were awoken by knocking at 4.30am on Sunday morning. I could tell it was the police as I came down the stairs, with their fluorescent jackets visible through the glass panel on the door.

I quickly tried to remember where all the kids were. Surely they're all in bed at this time? No, apparently not. Those five seconds between copping that it was the cops, the door opening and the officer saying the oldest boy had crashed his car - but will be okay - will live long in my nightmares.

The officer, with some welcome understatement, described it as a "little bump", but it was more serious than that as anyone who drove over the tank road on Sunday and saw a little blue hatchback with a concave roof parked in a field 30 metres from the road would attest.

The farmer whose field he had used as a sand trap said he didn't hold the record as one driver had managed to clear one field and had gone through the next hedge too.

He walked away without a scratch although quite a lot of pain and was taken to Darlington Memorial Hospital by an ambulance from Bainbridge for a check over.

A few days on and we are still thinking about what might have been had a sycamore self-seeded on the verge or it had been a stone wall, rather than a fence, that he had glided through. As everyone tells us he's been very lucky, but others aren't. Slow down kids - late is cool don't you know.

As an aside the doctor in A&E asked us which was our nearest casualty department when we went to collect the boy. I suggested the Friarage and he said he wasn't sure but if was still open it wouldn't be around for long as the hospital - like Bishop Auckland - was slowly being wound down. Okay Doctor Doom, pipe down.

On a lighter note, a judge examining pickles entered into the craft section of a unnamed Wensleydale village feast event at the weekend opened one jar to find an earwig sitting on top. The creature was alive, which is quite remarkable given that the jar was sealed nine months ago at Christmas. The pickle did not win a prize.