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I don't know if Hertfordshire is the furthest point away from Somerset in the UK, but every time we drive there it certainly feels like it. The drive is supposed to take around 3 hours, but it always seems to take 5. I could be in Scotland in that time. If only my family lived there. Plus it would save money during the Fringe. And I'd be Scotch.
The roads were very busy today and there was a storm hitting the UK and so things were very fucked up. Apparently the M25 was very bad and at least one entrance to it closed, but amazingly my sat nav managed to get us around the issue, by taking us on a magical mystery tour of English towns. I couldn't work out if we were heading for the M4 or the M40 until the very last minute. We took in places like Chalfont St Giles, which I had always half suspected was fictional. I don't think I've been through there before, but I've been through most places in my many years of touring, so I've probably played it at some point.
It reminded me of the Oxford Revue tour of 1987 when we drove to various venues round the country. We were young and excited and at this point hadn't been crushed by the disappointments and horrors of that year's Fringe and the five of us would laugh at the place names of the villages we passed and react in wonder to hearing MacArthur Park for the first time on the radio. We laughed and joked around like the annoying young pricks we were. But we were (temporarily) happy.
It turned out we were heading for the M4 and finally we got there, but suddenly our eta leapt forwards by 90 minutes. There were some big problems on this motorway. I was already weary and my hopes of getting to see my folks for afternoon tea were evaporating. The rain was coming down and the wind was strong enough to buffet our big car a bit, but we were moving for now. And our satnav kept us moving, taking us off the M4 for another tour of English towns and country roads, including Durrington where the school seems to have an iron age hut in its grounds. We'd been diverted off the main road again so missed Stonehenge. But not a single traffic jam on a road network that was beset with them. So it was a remarkable success for the satnav if a devastatingly exhausting drive for me. We were on motorways for less than half an hour, making the concentration required very high. I love to drive whilst not really concentrating.
Sure enough we were on the road for over five hours, with just one stop for a wee and a takeaway coffee. But worth it to get those tykes in front of their grandparents again. The kids had done some paintings for Babs and TK (Ernie had actually just taken one of his off the dining room wall, but Phoebe had done two specially) and it was all rather sweet.
