From Relaxation to Road Rage - Navigating My Post Holiday Traffic Tantrums
Lovely, beautiful, scenic Cornwall. All resplendent with its endless coastline, secret sandy beaches, perfect surf, rugged moors and delicious cream teams (jam first obviously).
Childhood memories of holidays in the beautiful towns of Hayle and St Ives are relived through my rose tinted spectacles (including the memorable trip with our extended family, where, as a 5 year who hadn’t yet learned to swim, I thought it would be sensible to follow my cousins lead and jump straight into the pool, sans flotation aids. It truly is incredibly how fast one can sink). More recently it’s been the location of some last minute holidays - based on a desire to get away but being unable to leave the country for reasons such as health (my major and messy abdominal surgery last year*) and the need to spend our travel budget on boring home renovations this year (damn you, new front door - that was my Japan fund you bastard**).
If you thought this post was going to be about my most recent trip to the beautiful little town of Fowey (rhymes with joy), I’m afraid you’re going to be sadly mistaken. No, I’m taking this opportunity to rant about how fucking far away Cornwall is from everything - and the lying bastard sat nav, which gives you glorious hope that your 250+ mile journey is going to take you just a little over 4.5 hours when in fact, you’ll still be sat in an overheating Fiesta at the 7 hour mark. And to be clear, it’s not my car that’s overheating. It’s the occupants - namely me.
You get lulled into a false sense of distance and time when you first set off for the journey to the South West from landlocked St Albans. Probably because you’re filled full of hope and excitement for a week off work. You’re probably also secretly hoping that the British weather will pull one out the bag and actually give you that glorious late September sun that we know this country can produce when it’s strong armed into it. Going somewhere new helps with journey naivety, as does setting off on a Friday morning (sensible because everyone else is at school or work). And I’m not an idiot, I know that the necessary comfort breaks and lunch stops are going to add some time to the journey - but I’m not going to get too hung up by that. We can’t check in to our cosy harbour cottage until 3pm, and as I’m completely neurotic about leaving anything unattended in the car, what’s the point in getting there too early anyway? And when we do finally arrive, an hour later than planned, having totted up a total of 6 hours, it’s all good. Mainly because I’m now grateful that we’re parked and I don’t need to navigate the ludicrous Cornish country roads, where, if you drive anything bigger than a matchbox car, you’re going to be holding your breath, in an effort to make the car smaller as you squeeze past some prick in a Range River Evoke (who hasn’t learnt the concept of giving way and is too scared to get his precious baby scratched up in a hedgerow - MOVE OVER DICKHEAD!)
No, the problems really start on the drive back home. Planning to start off early - so we’re not hitting the insanity of the M25 at the end of the working day (for those of you who haven’t had to experience this, I urge you - do NOT add it to your bucket list of things to try before you die). But of course, we don’t leave early. We want one last lie-in, followed by breakfast in that cute café overlooking that quaint bookshop. And then I have to do my household search to make absolutely sure I haven’t left something important, somewhere ludicrous (why did I leave my iPad in the dishwasher? Security probably). So of course it’s 10am by the time we leave. But it’s ok - the weather is glorious and the sat nav is promising home by 2.30pm.
And that’s when the fun starts. An incident that necessitates the deployment of an air ambulance as we drive through Bodmin moor, literally 400 meters from where we’re sat, means a very stationary period for my little car. Obviously I’m hoping that who ever needed air lifting away is ok and recovering - so I won’t callously complain about the hour it added to the journey. Hey, the sun is shining and it’s all good still.
Setting off again, with no real clue as to what happened exactly, I am soon to find out that having no clue will be a key feature of this journey. Why are we suddenly thrust into endless congestion on miles and miles (and hours and hours) of road? There is never any discernible reason. I’m assuming it’s idiot drivers - because let’s face it, it usually is. Lorries stuck in the middle lane whilst trying desperately to overtake on an uphill. Van drivers realising that the exit they need is RIGHT NOW and cutting across 4 lines of traffic to get to the slip road just so they don’t have to - shock horror - take the next exit instead (pay attention next time, you twit). Wankers in those expensive cars*** swerving in and out of every lane in an effort to get to the front of the line - seriously dude, flashing your lights is not going to make the rest of us miraculously clear the road - and I promise you, you don’t win a trophy for getting to the front of the queue (I’m really sorry if I’m tarnishing all expensive car drivers with this view - but based on driving capability, as far as I can tell, most of them have micro penises and the car is their way of making up for it). But hey, it’s just congestion. We’re all good… just…
And then the weather decides to stick its oar in and throw sheets of pelting rain upon us. Which apparently means everyone panics and starts to drive like they’ve lost the ability to see further than the tip of their nose, slowing down to sloth crawling speeds. How do people struggle driving in the rain? We live in Britain, we get enough bloody practice. And so the sat nav adjusts and that 2.30pm end time is now looking more like 4.30pm.
Pit stops to grab lunch and swap drivers all add to the time (it was me being swapped out, mainly because after about 2 hours, the OH was concerned that I might actually carry out one of the threats I was making to my fellow travellers) but just when we think that we have broken through the obstacles and are merrily barrelling down a free flowing motorway, the hell of the M25 looms large. And it’s exactly what we didn’t want. Friday night at kicking out of work time. And at Heathrow, the motorway literally becomes a car park. I’m surprised they**** haven’t found a way to charge people for unintentionally loitering on the M25. Imagine the gazillions that could be made. Instead we are tortured with having to watch airplanes depart for far flung, exotic lands, reminding us that our holiday is very much over - and it wasn’t the awe inspiring road trip through Oregon and Washington State that we were hoping for.
But it’s all good (I think) as now I’m actually starting to see the turn off signs for my town. And I’m absolutely not going to start thinking about how time consuming driving through St Albans is, or that it feels like I’ve wasted a day in the car, as the clock ticks ominously close to a 6.30pm finish and a mammoth 8.5 hour journey. No, instead I’m going to congratulate myself for returning on a Friday, giving myself another two days break before I have to be back in the office. And I’m already planning on what time on Saturday we can get to Trailfinders to start sizing up that autumnal trip to North West America next year - a holiday that absolutely requires driving but on roads as wide as all our houses put together and miles and miles of barely 3 drivers on the same stretch of jaw dropping mountain scenery (because I’m sorry Bristol, it really isn’t the same looking out over your grey and slightly depressing industrial estates).
And now, with my rant over, the car parked up and a mountain of washing I’m intending to ignore until Sunday, I’m going to go and crack open a nice cold beer for the OH - as he has been one the one today who has certainly had the worst journey. He’s had to travel with me after all.
*you can read all about that over on my posts from last year
**at least I can now open the front door without it cementing itself shut when it’s wet… or hot… or cold….
***you know the make I mean
****the motorway overlords
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