On the roads
Oct. 16th, 2024 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustIt is possible that the reason our motoring has not gone smoothly this last few days is simply that we have been driving about more than is usual for us; or perhaps the roads of Essex are cursed. Whatever happened to that useful feature of car radios, which would find the most local radio station, with news of local traffic? Now the radio offers us a choice of music stations, but won't tell us why we have been stationary on the A12 for an hour and counting...
I first thought this on Monday, returning to Colchester from Mersea Island. Perhaps it was unwise of us to drive back into town at five o' clock, but that doesn't explain why the traffic lights were red for such long stretches. What Google estimated at ten minutes took over half an hour, but we survived, and made it to Waitrose in time to buy a picnic to eat in our hotel room, watching Monday night's quizzes on television.
Yesterday we drove down to Basildon to spend the day withdurham_rambler's family: and had a pleasant, gentle, lazy day too. But driving back in the dark we found the A12 closed against us, and were just too late to spot the signposted diversion, which was not the way the satnav was bringing us. So we ended the day with an unexpected diversion along what would have been the scenic route if it hadn't been dark...
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times... This morning, on the way from Colchester to Saffron Walden, to the last hotel of our holiday, we found ourselves as described above, on the A12 again, in traffic that moved only from time to time to pull aside and let an unmarked emergency vehicle through. The grapevine claimed that someone was on a bridge and threatening to jump; searching the internet now, I find police statements about a woman being cared for by the ambulance crew, so the grapevine probably had it pretty much right.
Eventually we emerged, and made our way to St Andrew's church, Greensted, which was very soothing:
I vividly remember visiting it as a child; today I found myself wishing I could tell my father we had been there. It took me a long while after his death to stop filing things mentally must tell Tom about... but this was the first in quite a while. (I wonder if he knew bout the connection with the Tolpuddle Martyrs?)
I first thought this on Monday, returning to Colchester from Mersea Island. Perhaps it was unwise of us to drive back into town at five o' clock, but that doesn't explain why the traffic lights were red for such long stretches. What Google estimated at ten minutes took over half an hour, but we survived, and made it to Waitrose in time to buy a picnic to eat in our hotel room, watching Monday night's quizzes on television.
Yesterday we drove down to Basildon to spend the day with
durham_rambler's family: and had a pleasant, gentle, lazy day too. But driving back in the dark we found the A12 closed against us, and were just too late to spot the signposted diversion, which was not the way the satnav was bringing us. So we ended the day with an unexpected diversion along what would have been the scenic route if it hadn't been dark...Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times... This morning, on the way from Colchester to Saffron Walden, to the last hotel of our holiday, we found ourselves as described above, on the A12 again, in traffic that moved only from time to time to pull aside and let an unmarked emergency vehicle through. The grapevine claimed that someone was on a bridge and threatening to jump; searching the internet now, I find police statements about a woman being cared for by the ambulance crew, so the grapevine probably had it pretty much right.
Eventually we emerged, and made our way to St Andrew's church, Greensted, which was very soothing:
I vividly remember visiting it as a child; today I found myself wishing I could tell my father we had been there. It took me a long while after his death to stop filing things mentally must tell Tom about... but this was the first in quite a while. (I wonder if he knew bout the connection with the Tolpuddle Martyrs?)
