First a cow, then a frog.

So this is our car for the next few days. A Nissan Micra. In lurid green. It looks like a frog.
I don't mean that as a disparagement. With those bulbous 'eyes' and wide 'mouth' it really does look like frog, which is why my husband had to chose the green.
The Micra itself is a lovely city run-about and we are very glad to it in our lives at the moment.

But why are we driving around in a hire car when only a couple of months ago we bought ourselves this beautiful vehicle?

Our Beautiful Alfa Romeo Mito

The answer to that question is: a cow.

On Wednesday evening my husband was driving home after a long day at work when a local cow, who should have been safely fenced away on the farm but was instead wandering freely round the local countryside as her owner is wont to allow, decided to make a dash from the forest onto the road in order to become better acquainted with our new car. 

Unfortunately this was a completely spontaneous and ill-calculated whim and my husband was more than a little shocked when his peripheral vision perceived a bovine advancing rapidly in his direction.

Fortunately, even after a tiring day, my husband is an alert and responsive driver and in combination with the Alfa's fantastic breaking system he managed to swerve away from a full-speed frontal collision where the cow would have skidded up over the engine and straight through the windscreen causing ...... actually no, I'd rather not think about that.

As it was, and despite the fact that the car was practically at zero speed on impact, the crash buckled the front bonnet, crumpled the bumper and wing, and smashed the headlight to smithereens.

ouch!!

My poor husband was left in total shock after a near-death experience and the pulverizing of his dream motor car. The cow, on the other hand, got up and walked away.
In fact, my husband was in such a state of shock that instead of phoning the police and taking a rest on our sofa he went home to collect my daughter and then proceeded to drive to Naharia in order to collect my son from swimming and me from a friend's house!!

While on the way my husband and daughter decided to phone me and break the news.
At this time I was in the middle of a supper party at a friend's apartment. Things were a little chaotic as my friend had discovered she had been mistaken about her flight time and it was actually taking-off at just past midnight that day. .

We all ate and made polite conversation and tried to figure out when our friend needed to leave in order to get through security before her plane departed. We came to the conclusion she had half an hour.

When I answered my phone I could hardly hear what my husband anddaughter were saying and when I did hear them I could hardly believe what they told me. They love to play practical jokes on me and my husband seemed nowhere near as distraught as I would have expected. After an accident free 20+ years of driving it seemed impossible that it would be our dream Alfa that got wrecked. It was too surreal to be true.
Once I put the phone down I thought about the conversation and despite desperately wanting it to be a joke I realised that my daughter had sounded quite upset and came to the distressing conclusion that they were telling the truth.
Then I had to explain the expression on my face to my companions while at the same time hustling my friend and her suitcase out the door. One friend dropped her off at the station while I stayed  to tidy up.

My rather subdued family walked through the door to find me elbow deep in dishes and dirty water. I couldn't even give them a comforting hug.
I kept asking my husband how it had happened and he just replied that the cow had come from nowhere.
We live in a rural area so in addition to the usual range of domestic dogs and cats that play 'chicken' on Israeli roads we also have to deal jackals, mongoose, porcupines and the occasional wild boar.
In the 17 years we have lived here Eyal has managed to dodge them all as they race to get out of our way.
But the cow is a more massive beast and it seems that although she managed to skip pretty swiftly into the path of an on-coming Mito she didn't have had the speed or the reaction time to skip away again (even if she tried, and I'm not sure she did.)

After my friends apartment was sparkling and safely locked up I went down to inspect the damage.
.

I was stunned and horrified. 

When I gave my husband a hug he was shaking and I realized he was in shock. He kept rubbing his forehead and making mental lists of what he needed to do for the insurance next day, trying to figure out how we would manage without a car.

On the way home we had to hand over my friend's apartment key. Her landlord, who is both her and our real estate agent, is also a friend and general nice guy. We meet up in a petrol station and his jaw hit the floor when he saw the state of our car. However he is a cheerful guy and he helped Eyal examine the damage calmly and they estimated that it was nasty but fixable.

yes that is cow sh*t

Neither of us slept very well and the next morning I had to go to work. Eyal stayed home to deal with the insurance. We have been with our insurers a long time and they agreed to repair the car at the Alfa garage not their usual, local place. On the way to the garage Eyal phoned the assessor, an Alfa/Lancia specialist, to be told he was already on his way. They met up at the garage. 

Even the assessor was shocked and when he was informed that the assailant had been a cow he remarked that Eyal must have been driving slowly to walk away from such a crash - "Do you know what it is to hit a cow?". "Well, I do now!" was my husband's reply. He must have been feeling better if his sense of humour had returned.

The garage and the assessor agreed to repair everything as my husband wanted. Then they had to sort out an exchange car. Of course the Alfa garage doesn't supply you with the usual grotty banger as exchange car instead they arranged a car from the rental place next door. Eyal did consider a Fiat 500 they offered but it needed a couple hours for servicing. 

And that is how we happen to be driving around in a green Nissan 'frog' this weekend.