Thursday 8th August

Off to Bedford today to pick up the youngest, this means the M6 and Birmingham. There is no good time to do this journey traffic wise, and so I set off when I’m ready just before 9am, and cross my fingers. Miraculously this tactic works, as I have what must be the smoothest run in living memory and arrive in about 3 hours. The youngest is involved in a cricket match, and by the time I’ve identified him from the four matches going on its lunch time. I walk down the road to Wetherspoons and order the all-day-breakfast, plus a coffee. Now regular readers will know I usually pay 95p for coffee in Wetherspoons, but also recently found the same coffee priced at £1.15, in another Wetherspoons local to me. Well on Bedford High Street the same coffee is only 85p! Go figure, how the same coffee is more expensive further North. I wonder if it’s the transportation costs. It must be really cheap in Dover!

My lunch is interrupted by a screaming child at the table next to me. Not a young baby but a toddler with a dummy, who screamed when they didn’t get their way. Eventually a chap who was out for a lunchtime pint and a chat with his mate, got fed up, and he told the parents what the whole pub was thinking. We didn’t come out to listen to your screaming child. If they can’t behave, you really shouldn’t be subjecting everyone else to their tantrums.

After a pleasant afternoon sat in the sun watching cricket we get back in the car about 5pm, just in time for rush hour. Its funny tracking the traffic jams on the radio, the ones they warn you about are quite often over the worst by the time you hear about them, and normally you’re stuck in the really bad ones by the time they come on and warn you. There is something of an art, to working out exactly how bad a traffic jam is, based on the traffic news and your own experience. We get home in about 3 ½ hours having taken a different route, avoiding Birmingham, so I was pretty happy with that.

Mrs P is glad to have the four of us back under the same roof. At least for the next week anyway, until the eldest goes off to her music Festival.

Yours glad not to be driving on motorways for a living.

Jay