Even-handedness

I grizzle enough about road conditions and driving in other countries, so perhaps it's time to redress the balance a little.  We spent over seven dreadful hours yesterday on the slow, congested Ms 25, 40, 42, 5, and 6, plus the gridlock known as Dudley (an attempt to circumnavigate the stationary M6) and the countryside and genteel suburbs from Alsager to Northwich, for the same reason.  Driving was every bit as hair-raising [irony: Ed] as that lately reported from France.  Middle-lane hogging, road-dirt coloured cars creeping through the murk and spray without lights, asses in Cayennes hurtling along the hard shoulder, to cite but a few.  Had train fares not been so exorbitant, we should have used public transport.  We stopped for lunch at the Oxford service station on the M40, which was a premonition of hell: airless, noisy and full of Other People.  That said, we were well enough fed by a Harry Ramsden counter.

A journey calculated at less than four hours took getting on for double that.  Still, we're installed in a comfortable, if pricey room in a Premier Inn for a couple of nights, and have a wedding to look forward to - more anon.  The rooms are tacked on behind a pub, so dinner, it being Friday night, was not a relaxing experience (though the food was good).  Near our table were two tables filled with raucous tattooed slappers out on a hen night.  In the adjacent pub was the usual Friday night gathering of uncouth tattooed oafs.  O tempora, o mores.

I should know better than launch into a mixed gristle at 20:00, having had more than the usual frugal lunch.  I had trouble getting to sleep, and when I did, had lurid dreams. Fortunately, we have the luxury of a late start this morning, so can take time drinking tea, enjoying a leisurely breakfast and planning routes.