road trip

Claiming Time Back

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

I’ve been working extra hours to balance the rotas over the last few weeks so after checking with colleagues and setting out daily timetables I took today off and went down to Portsmouth.

Yesterday’s activities were exhausting on a mental level, so catching up with myr s and the rest of the polycule was a good antidote. Food and drink and a bit of shopping later and it was time to go home again – it was just a much needed break to get some sun and good company.

I wish I could have stayed longer, but we’re obeying the restrictions regarding staying over in the hope we can restart normal visits next month. Here’s hoping. It’s been difficult to be so separated.

On The Road

Tim Maidment1 Comment

Lady M and I are on our grand tour round the UK to drop off gifts and spend time with family. Like so many other people, we’re on the road in an escape from the day-to-day and Christmas podcasts are currently filling the car.

Our first leg was the longest, a six hour trip from London to Hartlepool. I handled the driving duties with a single break as Lady M was feeling a bit under the weather. Lady M’s sister lives in Hartlepool, and it’s where she grew up so it brought up a lot of memories.

Hartlepool Marina this morning

Hartlepool is receding behind us now as we head towards the West coast. We’ve been lucky so far in that yesterday’s traffic was heavy but generally moved along with only minor stopping and starting in the M1. This morning with Lady M driving seems so far to only be light traffic, so that’s a bonus.

There you go, boring journey updates logged. I suspect the next few days’ blog posts may be filtered through Christmas cheer.

Travel Musings

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

It has been a very long day, despite a relative lie in this morning. We had the first of Lady M’s birthday celebrations yesterday: a casual open house that ended in the early hours of the morning. After a quick clear up and feeding of those who crashed on various soft furnishings, we then headed out to head back North.

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We’re on our road trip to pick up a number of things from Lady M’s childhood home, and because nothing is ever simple our journey was made even more interesting than usual by roadworks and heavy fog. This latter hindrance was caused by today being the hottest November day on record, and for our journey nearly took over the blanketing of the country just after we ran out of motorway roadworks.

With Lady M not feeling well (she claims it was a migraine, I’ve teased her that it was a hangover), it fell to me to make the seven hour journey happen. So, on went the Orbital CD on repeat and the miles rolled by. Sadly we were unaccompanied by Lady P due to a hospital checkup clash, so there was a distinct lack of salty comment on our fellow drivers today. That’s a shame, partly because we miss her scathing inventiveness and partly because there was just so much to critique today.

There was the startling number of impatient small cars, the impressive number of people darting out just in front of us as we were overtaking, a worrying number of lorries that tried to get into the boot of our car, and of course the hilarious way that people zigzagged  between lanes to get ahead and still ended up behind us in queues.

Still, I’ve taken great pleasure this evening in relaying how Lady M tore strips off three burly hipsters in the bar this evening who had started by being rude, thinking she was blind because she was wearing sunglasses to manage her light sensitivity. They then tried to chat her up when they realised she wasn’t blind, and got demolished as she professed her love for her husband and girlfriend in full earshot of the whole bar and stamped on their egos for a full five minutes. They retreated to go vape outside the bar shortly after, and the staff took turns to come and gawp. We’re so proud of her…

You can take the girl out of Hartlepool…