Last week, I decided to pay a visit to my friends Terry and Julie whom I hadn’t seen in ages.

But, as I was driving along the main street towards their house, I couldn’t help but notice that the road was covered in what looked like cream paint.

“What a blinking mess,” my fellow passenger commented.

“You’re right,” I agreed.

“It looks as though the council road markers have had a bit of an accident,” I concluded, because there seemed to be cream paint all over the road in both directions as far the eye could see.

Settling down in my friends’ living room with a cup of tea I shouted through to the kitchen.

“Terry, have you seen the awful mess at the top of your street?”

Sheepishly Terry, followed by Julie appeared with their mugs of tea and sat down beside me.

“Em…… we had a bit of an accident,” Julie admitted.

“You did?” I questioned, wondering how the heck they had managed to cause such mayhem on a busy main road.

“Well….”

Terry started with his explanation.

“Me and Julie were heading off to decorate our new business and had jam packed the car with everything we needed because, we had a long drive and didn’t want to do two runs.”

I sipped my tea and listened intently.

“But as we turned right on to the busy main road,” Terry explained.

“Somehow the tail gate of the car flew open causing everything to spill on to the road.”

“On no,” I replied.

I could tell by their body language that each was blaming the other for not securing the car door properly, but decided to stay out of what I later found out had already been a major domestic incident.

“Oh no,” I kept repeating as Julie added.

“We heard a loud clatter, felt a sudden breeze and realised what had happened.”

Seemingly Terry switched on his hazards and jumped out of the car at the speed of light to assess the carnage whilst Julie did the same and put her sandwiches and juice safely on the car roof.

“Janice, a huge puddle of cream emulsion was getting bigger and bigger.”

He barely stopped for breath.

“A tin containing a thousand screws had burst and were scattered everywhere,” he puffed.

“Paint brushes and rollers, turps and even a set of ladders had spilled on to the road.”

“Oh no,” I repeated.

“It got worse than that,” Julie added.

And I wondered how that was possible.

“You’ll never guess what pulled up right behind us?”

I shook my head.

“A hearse!”

“On no,” I parroted.

“Followed by a funeral cortege a mile long!”

Apparently the hearse driver switched of his engine, got out of the car and tucked his hat under his arm to assess the situation.

Meanwhile, apparently quick thinking Terry rushed into a nearby mobility shop screaming.

“Help, quick,I need a brush.”

According to Terry, much to his frustration, when the old codger final appeared from the back of the shop, he handed him a small hand brush and pan.

“I’ll tell you Janice, I’ve used a bigger brush to brush my hair.”

“On no,” Nervously I couldn’t help but laugh.

“There I was, on my hands and knees trying to sweep up the paint and screws, but the paint was too heavy for the brush.

Meanwhile the puddle of paint was getting bigger and bigger.

Knowing his cortege wasn’t going anywhere soon, the hearse driver started to pick up the screws which were scattered within his path, and mourners were now out of their cars to see what the holdup was.

“I tried my best to stop the traffic in the other direction,” Terry said.

“But a smart ass driver ignored me and drove through the cream paint which splattered up the sides of his blue Audi.”

“By now lots of pedestrians were pointing and shaking their heads at us.” Julie still seemed embarrassed.

And I thought. No wonder they were pointing, what with cream paint running down the road mingled with screws, nails, a set of ladders, and, I later found out a broken jar of pound coins.

This story was getting worse.

According to Julie cream tyre treads were starting to appear down one side of the road as cars drove slowly through the paint.

Eventually, whilst the queue of traffic in either direction was getting longer and longer a cleaner appeared from a nearby pub with a two long handled brushes and handed one to Terry and the other to Julie.

“Clean it up and hand me in new brushes tomorrow,” she scolded.

Humiliated, the pair brushed as much cream paint back into the tin as possible and eventually the road was clear enough for the cortege to carry on.

Humiliated and exhausted, the pair were finally on their way, when Julie turned to Terry.

“Terry, did you see where I put my sandwiches?”

Argh…….