Skip to main content

She who hesitates is almost lost!

My journey home from the Cotswolds took an unexpected twist.  Having travelled down on the west side of the country, using the M6, which is what we normally do, I decided to ring the changes and come back up on the east side.  I drove along the M42, which is never a great experience at the best of times, and I had actually congratulated myself on 'so far, so good' by being in the right lane, when suddenly, with split-second timing, I found myself in the wrong lane and heading, irrevocably, for the M6 Toll.  Despair, dismay, and intense irritation as I realised I had to pay another £5.50 toll.  How did that happen?  

The M6 Toll road is probably the best £5.50 you can spend in the UK.  It's like going back to the M1 in the 1960s.  When everyone else is having a nose-to-tail nightmare on the M6 and Spaghetti Junction, the rest of us are bowling along the toll road without a care in the world. I didn't feel quite so tickety-boo on this occasion, but it wasn't the end of the world .... until the overhead motorway signboards read 'M6 closed Jnct 16 - 17'.  And so it began.  We crept for miles and miles and miles and miles.  At one point engines were turned off, and we just sat.  Three lorries had had an accident and that was that!  The recommended speed was 40 mph, 4 mph would have been nice.
 I got to know my neighbours quite well.
The late evening sun was still shining by the time I reached the end of our lane.  It was 9.30 pm and I had left at 11 am.  It's a good thing BBC Radio 4 have a range of very good programmes on Fridays!  I listened to all of them, and was glad!

Comments

  1. Oh the excitement of all that for just £5.50!!!
    I guess it could have been worse if it had been a very hot day, or if you had children in the car - but it must have seemed an age before you were able to get going again. Good old Radio 4.

    ReplyDelete
  2. One of the highlights of the experience was watching some young men joyfully gambolling along between the lines of cars, brandishing bottles of chilled white wine and bubbly, which they had obviously purchased from M&S at Keele Services! They brought a smile to my face! I liked the idea they were making the most of it all - why not!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In a vase on Monday - colour

The intense colours in my vase this week come from nasturtiums, sweetpeas and a single glorious zinnia! Their beauty and love of life speak for themselves and need no further words from me! Enjoy!

Found items IAVOM

I am on holiday on the Inner Hebridean island of Colonsay. It is my happy place. Thoughts of Colonsay rattle around in my head each and every day I am not here! I haven't got a vase to share this week but some lovely things I have found over the past few days, which are just as beautiful as a vase of flowers! I hope you agree! Here are some leaves of giant rhododendrons, growing in the outer gardens of Colonsay House. Some skeleton leaves of magnolia. The dried stem of a kelp seaweed. A couple of conkers (can never resist those!), and a branch heavily populated by a number of lichens. The air on Colonsay is so clean that lichens flourish here!

Colonsay postcards - on arrival

The first thing I do, once we have unpacked our car, which has been groaning with all the stuff we need for a week's stay in the holiday cottage, is head for the outer gardens of Colonsay House. It is a place of wonder for me! I particularly love the leaves of the giant rhododendrons. There are many different varieties, all planted in the early 1930s. The outer gardens are generally overgrown, having had little tending over the decades. That makes them even more magical! The old woodmill falls apart a little more every year, but that's fine by me because I love corrugated iron and especially if it's rusted! And of course the bees. Colonsay's beekeeper, Andrew Abrahams, has one of his apiaries on the edge of the pine wood. So lovely - the hum of busy bees and the heady smell of the pines. We are here - finally! Delayed by four months by the wretched virus, but now I am on holiday! Hooray!