Two
First - driving down a road somewhere near Macclesfield, following a Transit van.

Van brakes sharply. So do I.

Object wearing helmet and leathers appears over the roof of Transit van and lands between back of van and front of my car.

Object is dead beyond hope of recovery.

The horror of this sank home at the inquest, which I had to go to as a witness, when we learned that the motorcyclist had previously been a pretty hopeless abuser of all sorts of substances but had met a girl, turned his life around and was going to work (his first ever full time job) when this happened.

That would be 1996 and still a tear forms in my eye...

Secondly - Kendal, 1990. I worked on the fourth floor of an office block overlooking the river. Right by our office is a weir, dam, waterfall - call it what you like but it's about 10 feet high and the river cascades over it.

It's a very hot day and the local kids are playing in the river under the waterfall.

From our vantage point we can see what they can't. There's a dead sheep - a BIG dead sheep - floating gracefully downstream.

The waterfall concentrates the flow of water and thus accelerates it so an entire office crowds to the window to watch a very sodden dead sheep pick up speed at a rate it never achieved in it's ovine heyday towards the oblivious frolicking youngsters.

Better than we expected. I don't know the speed that the water falls at this point but the sheep (deceased) flipped over the top of the waterfall at a fair rate of knots and - literally - disintegrated as it fell showering the fun loving youths in sheep components. Oh how they ran.

The first still visits me at low moments. The second still makes me grin.
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Sat 23 Jun 2007, 0:30, Reply)