Easter basket cases

I've done a lot of driving lately.  I went down to Sussex on Friday to pick up my lovely Mum, who is staying with me over Easter.  We're having a bit of a girlie weekend, which is very pleasant. 

Mr WithaY has made himself scarce, off on some woodsmans training course, where he will be honing his bushcraft and survival skills.  I daresay that even now he is sitting by a campfire, munching on pemmican, trying to dry himself off.  He made a batch of venison jerky last week, ready for the weekend.  Then, struck by inspiration, he finely ground up some of the jerky, added dried cranberries and suet, moulded the whole lot into squash-ball-sized lumps and packed it in his survival kit.  He was very proud of it. 

Pemmican.  Mmm.  Fatty.  And if he doesn't get through it all, I daresay the birds will enjoy it.

Anyway, the driving.  I went down to Sussex, as I said, a journey of just about 100 miles which usually takes me 2 hours, give or take a bit.  The weather was horrific.  Heavy, heavy rain, thick blinding spray on the roads, and of course all the fuckwit holiday drivers who are determined to drag their caravans all the way to the South Coast despite the fact that it is like the end of the world outside.

Gah.

I know I've mentioned this on the blog a few times before, but why oh why oh fucking why do people insist on driving with their lights off in poor visibility?  I almost sideswiped a silver van as he came up fast on the outside, completely masked in the spray and gloom.  Luckily I spotted him before I started to overtake the car in front of me, but even so it was close. 

The trip home was marred by traffic.  Traffic traffic traffic.  We sat on the road into Salisbury for 45 minutes, just waiting to get into the city.  Once in, it was fine.  The roads were relatively clear, but the queue on the way was just appalling.  I only went that way because I had driven past miles of traffic heading west down the A303 on the way out that morning, and thought I'd be wily and avoid it going home.

Schoolboy error.

Here's a picture of similar traffic on the A303 I took a while back.  I daresay some of the same cars were in the queue on Friday. 

I logged the queue on Friday at about 6 miles.  Nice.

It took us 3 hours to get home. THREE.  Once here, however, we have been having a nice time.  Yesterday we went for lunch to the rather funky Indian restaurant on the side of the A36, which used to be a Little Chef.  They kept the elephant slide outside but have decorated it tastefully.  Today we plan a trip to the garden centre, as the sun has made an appearance. 

It's all go here.

On the road again

Lordy, I've done some driving in the last few days.

140 miles to Bedford at oh my gawd o'clock on Tuesday morning, then back again on Wednesday afternoon. We went cross-country on the way up there as my colleague was navigating. I did the motorways coming home as I was on my own and am defiantly refusing to get a satnav system.

Some people, however, were reading maps, playing with satnavs, texting on their mobiles and smoking fags whilst cruising down the road. Fuckwits.

Interestingly* both journeys took about the same length of time, given that the M1 was being dug up and I reached the M3 junction off the M25 at 5.30 at night.

The actual event was exhausting. I was part of the team giving a presentation to about 100 Captains of Industry (not a woman among the lot of them), and then spending the following day having meetings all over the show.

Would have been better if one of the Very Senior And Important People hadn't given me a bollocking** about my project just before I had to go and do my bit. If it hadn't all been about stuff I already know and have been telling them about for 6 months it would have been easier to bear.

I did get to have a test drive on the specialist vehicles course, but sadly it was in a Prius. I won't be buying one. Apparently the speed track there is where they filmed some of Casino Royale - the bit where he writes off the (?)Aston Martin trying to avoid running over the girl.

Other news: My WithaY's dad is still very poorly, which is worrying. Mr WithaY managed to catch a hideous cold last weekend so has been feeling terrible, on top of the worry. So a fun week for him.

We have some mates coming over at the weekend. We are dog-sitting for them on Sunday when they go to see another mate being ordained.

Bloody hell. I never in a million years thought I'd be writing that sentence.

Anyway. It's the first time the three mad spaniels have been here since the garden-trashing disgrace. If they are naughty, they go in the kennel. I will make sure I tell them that right from the outset.

Some other mates are coming over for tea on Sunday, so I think a cake-creating bonanza is called for. Spence, text me with any cake requests. Heh.


*Or not, if you are a normal person.

**Not what you think, American readers.

Pants

There was a bloke driving to work this morning with a pair of blue boxer shorts flapping out of his driver window.

Why?

If they were to block the sun from his eyes, surely having them wedged in securely would be more effective?

And if they were to warn other road users of a hazard, surely they should have been red?

A mystery.

Waterlogged baboonery

In the office today, following an eventful drive across Salisbury Plain this morning. I know we are relatively lucky compared to the poor bastards in Hull, Tewkesbury, Worcester etc, but the roads round here are hovering between "big puddles a bit too close together" and "flooded".

What with the surface water, the rain and the huge amounts of spray, visibility was poor, to say the least. I ended up toddling along at 30mph behind one of those boxy, ridiculously underpowered little 1.3 pretend Transit vans for a bit.

As I have said before (many times I expect, I do go on), there are a lot of fuckwits on the roads these days.

Not me, of course.

My driving is without flaw. Except when I get too close to the car in front. And go a bit too fast on motorways sometimes. And pull out at mini roundabouts when nobody else seems willing to take the initiative. But apart from that.

Anyway. Other idiot drivers:

Some drive too fast.

Some drive too slow.

Some talk cheerfully on their mobile phones, ignoring both the danger and the fact it's ILLEGAL, fuckwits.

Some eat three course meals with one hand whilst attempting to keep control of their vehicle with the other.

Some have dogs/children/sheep* flailing around in the back of their vehicle, causing them to turn round and shout at them, usually on a blind bend or coming up to a busy junction.

Some are just annoyingly hairy. Or wearing stupid hats.

But the ones who annoy me the most (today, anyway) are the ones who think they have extra special secret magical powers, making them appear to other drivers despite the prevailing visibility and weather conditions.

Why don't these BASTARDS put their lights on?

One of them almost ran me off the road this morning. I was stuck behind the slow van, he was stuck behind me. I was waiting for the soon-to-appear straight bit of road which would allow us both to overtake without causing a massive pile-up.

He, however had other plans.

He drove so close up behind me that I thought he was trying to see what earrings I'm wearing today, then pulled out (no indicators obviously, to match his "no lights" fuckwittery). This was on a left hand bend (is that the one where the road bends to the left?) with no forward visibility of the road, so no idea what, if any, oncoming traffic there was.

Instead of thinking "Oops, I'm driving like a blind halfwitted baboon, I'd better put my foot down and get out of this dangerous situation," he just kept pace with me, driving on the wrong side of the road as we went round the corner.

I looked across at him in some dismay because he was totally oblivious to both his own danger, and the danger he had now put me and the van driver in as well. Gah.

I pulled back as far as possible from the van in front of me, because I could see that this was all going to end in tears.

Sure enough, an oncoming car (with no fucking lights on, idiot) appeared. Halfwit baboon boy on my right visibly panicked, swung his steering wheel hard to the left and screeched into the small gap I had made in front of me, behind the little van.

He very nearly lost control of his car so I helpfully blared the horn at him (first time in anger, hurrah) and shouted "You fucking twat!" at him. I think he got the gist, if not the whole message.

Anyway, he paused for a few moments, then pulled out (again no indicators, continuing with the ongoing fuckwittery theme), screeched past the van and hared off across the heavily waterlogged roads of Salisbury Plain.

I know it's uncharitable but I really, really wanted to come round a corner and see him upside-down in a field.

Sadly not the case. Today, at least.

It was a dark green saloon car. Like an old Cavalier or similar. If you are reading this, idiot boy, learn to drive.

And TURN YOUR FUCKING LIGHTS ON.

*really, seen cars with sheep in the back a few times