Friday and it was time to negotiate the long trip home. It had been a strange week and I was looking forward to setting off and more importantly, getting home. Even to the point where I had considered setting off after work on Thursday but I guess it would have been too tiring to drive the 600 or so miles without a decent nights sleep before. So I did my last bit of work and hit the bed at 9.00 p.m. with an alarm clock set for 4.00 a.m.
Just before the alarm sounded I was awake and by the time 4.00 a.m. arrived I was almost ready for walking out of the door. I checked out and got to the car. It was a very cold morning, obviously totally dark. The beauty of setting off at this time was the that I could get out of the city and onto the motorway in double quick time.With only a few other vehicles on the road it was a chance to keep up to the speed limit and having the nice surprise of finding that I could get BBC Radio 5 Live on the radio I could keep up with the cricket score, only to find that the England team were doing so bad I kept switching between a bit of music and the ongoing updates that were only bringing more and more disappointing news of progress or rather lack of it for England. Another thing that was changing as I drove was the temperature gauge. It was definitely dropping. In Luxembourg it was a positively balmy five degrees but as I ventured across Belgium it had already dropped to 2 and then to 1 degree Celsius. Also it was noticeable that the snow was becoming deeper at the side of the road. This meant drastic action and time to slow down and take the journey at a more sedate pace in case the warnings of ice were in fact true.
The lack of traffic until the Brussels Ring Road and then after on the way to Calais meant that I was at the Channel Tunnel terminal just after 9.00 a.m. and booked on the 10:20 train this gave me a nice chance to partake in a toilet break and then to top up my bladder with a coffee. It was then boarding time and we boarded nice and easily. As I sat there and waited for the train to complete boarding and set off on our way, suddenly the lights in the carriage went dark. It was quite eerie and had to use my car light to see what was going on. A few moments later an announcement said there had been a technical issue but the engineers were on hand and fixing the problem. About 30 minutes later the announcement decided that it was not going to be fixed and we were off loaded and directed to another train. Obviously it was not real catastrophe but after getting to the terminal so early to loose an hour did bother me a bit, but we were soon on our way and by 11:30 I was unloaded from the train and back on English soil and heading home.
I decided to make one stop just after the M11 turns into the A14, a local Tesco is built on a small complex and on that shopping area is a fish and chip shop so I had a fish and a bread roll to keep away the pangs of hunger and to keep me going till home and tea.
The journey was pleasant with the only hold up in traffic on the A1 just as it joins the M18 but as by that time I am less than 30 minutes from home it didnt seem to bother me.
Driving into Goole after such a long journey does have a great feeling and getting out of the car and into the house for a nice fresh made cup of tea made me realise how tired I was feeling. I have done that journey three times now and both other times I said I would not do it again, this time I again was tired but did not feel I would never do it again, only maybe not the next time.
So with the midnight hour approaching and my body tired from its long journey I will say
Night All.
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