Airports, so very very dull

There has to be a better system than airports. So much time is spent sitting and waiting or standing and queuing. I wonder how much time is wasted in the year by people at airports? If only someone could finish off a teleportation device then this would be a lot easier. On the plus side Heathrow has been remarkably efficient so far, long may it continue throughout the journey.

Holiday time

That time of the year is upon us. It is Easter and every Easter for the last 7 years myself, my wife and more recently my daughter leave England and depart for the mighty U. S. of A. Doesn't matter where we go, we just find the cheapest easiest flights to wherever we can, and see what we see. This Easter is no different and so we packed up the car with enough belongings to last us at least a month, and enough electronic gadgets to arrange a planetary takeover, and began our journey.

Usually we fly direct out of Manchester airport but this time the second cheapest flights were from Heathrow so we headed south (the actual cheapest flights were from Manchester to Heathrow and then onwards to the US but that is just silly). Setting of at the intended 9,30 (actually 9,50 but that error was factored in already) we arrived down in Derbyshire for lunch at 11. York to Heathrow all in one go is a bit much for a little person so a stopover at grandparents seemed the ideal way to break it up. Leaving there just before 2 we arrived at the Heathrow Crown Plaza just after 4. A nice hotel (by the standard of the usually terrible airport hotels), the room is great, but the pool was full (they have a different definition of full to me) and the car park is what I traditionally know as a field. On the plus side it has a free club lounge with free drinks and free munchies and I will always be swayed by free food. Tomorrow is a bigger journey, but that's another story.

A cow or not a cow?

Not a lot of excitement on the journey home, all but the last 15 minutes were simple motorway driving. The music was on loud and the car seemed quite happy to eat up the miles with minimum input from myself. One slight curiosity occured before I left when I found in the hotel grounds a life size model cow. No idea why, I suppose it must have some sort of artistic merit, but my overriding thought was simply, odd!

An improving day

Back down to Wales again today for a meeting in Cardiff. Still snowing for most of the journey but just warm enough to ensure the snow doesn't settle and instead just adds a bit of fuzz to the air. Quiet enough journey as half of the schools are off this week and that always makes the roads a little easier to traverse. After the meeting the final stage of the days journey was over the Severn Bridge and down the side of Bristol to my hotel for the night. The hotel was a new one for me, the Bristol Hilton Doubletree about 6 miles from Clevedon. Never been here before but will endevour to come again as it one of the nicest looking hotels I have been too in years. Part of it is an old country house that gets used for weddings and events and the rest is brand new and beautifully finished. A Marco Pierre White restaurant makes some great food and a standalone gym and swimming pool complex is as good as you would ever see. To cap it all you get a freshly cooked Chocolate Chip cookie on arrival, what more could you want?

Entertainment on the Journey

Journeys to the office are invariably dull. It's 65 miles of motorway driving followed by 20 miles of twisty back lanes as you bury yourself in the Peak District. That might be nice if I hadn't done the same journey closing on a thousand times since I started working there. Today however was a little bit different as today I had my three year old daughter with me. She was visiting her Nanna for the day having been refused entry to nursery on account of a mild case of what she reliably informs me is Chicken Spots. My daughter is a wonderful person but 2 and a half hours of undistracted conversation with her would probably drive anyone completely mad so we usually provide entertainment in the form of a film on an iPad stuck to the back of the car headrest. I already think my iPad is a wonderful thing but its use as a boredom alleviation tool is a spectacular achievement and though I can now recite the majority of Shrek the Third, it meant that she was happy and that means I am happy. Some entertaining snow drifts also helped.

Driving without seeing

Yesterday should have been a good day, I started off at one of my favourite hotels, The Newport Holiday Inn  and got home before 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The hotel is always nice, decent food, friendly staff and (important for me) a quiet pool to have a swim in on the evening you arrive. I left the hotel at 8 o'clock, drove up into the hills near Merthyr to see a customer and about 90 mins later set off home. This should have been a good day but unfortunately I knew what I was coming home to. My cat, my friend, my rock, had a brain haemmorage on Tuesday night and thirty minutes after I got back home, he died.

I did around 290 miles yesterday and though I know the route I must have travelled, I would struggle to tell you a thing about it. I know I must have gone over the Severn Bridge and admired the view. I suspect I drove along the motorway past Gloucester and whinged about the roadworks. Its fairly likely I stopped at services near Birmingham for a sandwich and then carried on through the Midlands and into Yorkshire and home. I must have done all these things, but my mind was elsewhere and instinct was doing it's job. Its frightening that you can drive so far and see so little, that your hands, feet and eyes can do their job independant of your conscious thought. that you can rely so much on luck and routine to get you through, but it happens and it happened. My cat died yesterday and all that matters is that I got home and was there at the end.

Castles and Hills

Today I drove around 350 miles from York to Swansea and then back up the road to Newport for the night. Though its always a long day when I go to Wales it's generally enjoyable. Once you have got around the dullness of Birmingham, the scenary cheers up and the hills start to grow.

Two choices in getting into South Wales, either along the M50 towards Ross-on-Wye or down to Bristol and accross the Severn Bridge. Today I chose the former and that turned out to be an error in judgement. I can only presume that the M50 is a training ground for setting out cones, it's only 15 miles long but is forever being dug up, re-laid or simply coned off for sheer amusement value. Good job it's a quiet patch of road otherwise the constant roadworks could get very frustrating. After the motorway I would normally take the A40 down past Symonds Yat (a gorgeous village either side of the River Wye if you ever get chance to visit) but a detour around some blockages took me up and into the hills before dropping me off at Raglan. Raglan Castle looks brilliant to my eye and great fun to climb around. I always think I should stop and have a decent look but it's just too far from home. One day, maybe, when I have more time...... After Raglan its up and on to the Heads-of-the-Valleys road and some brilliant views accros the edge of the Brecon Beacons before joining the motorway again for the last few miles into Swansea. The journey back from Swansea to Newport for the night is all Motorway and nothing exciting but I end up in a decent hotel so that's a bonus.

Not all days are a fun drive

Some days the road is peaceful and no matter the miles it is a pleasure to drive on. Today was not one of thse days, today the roads were busy and full of Monday morning traffic and sleepy, tetchy people.

Even when the roads are busy, if the weather is nice then that can make up for it with some glorious sunshine to lighten the mood. Today was not one of those days either, it started of with slushy rain, improved slightly to a heavy drizzle, tried a couple of hours of fog and eventually settled on light rain with gusty winds.

Taking those factors into account the only potential redeeming point is if the destination is pleasent, but my destination was Walsall and though the people in Walsall can be very nice and I am sure it has some lovely aspects, to me it is a grey, dull and in dire need of a facelift. A 260 mile round trip leaving me in a throughly narked mood.

Sometimes it's just good to drive

There are days when driving is simply not enjoyable. Days when the traffic is bad, the weather is grey and the mood suits the weather a little too well. Today was not one of those days.

On this gloriously sunny day I drove from home, accross Yorkshire to Cumbria and on into the Lake District National Park to install some equipment at a reservoir in a tiny village called High Ireby. 250 miles, perfect weather and scenary that reminds me why I keep doing the job. Some people travel the world to see a beautiful view and simply forget what they have around them. Why spend hours at an airport, even more on the flight and extra at the end just for something different. You should never forget what your own country has to offer and though it's nice to see the world, just look round the corner occasionally while you are at it.

Peculiar weather

Todays jouney went from my home city of York, accross the top of the Peak District, around Manchester and finally dropping into Warrington. There and back came to a grand total of 190 miles. Curious weather throughout the day, at some points it was glorious sunshine and on other occasions heavy snow blizzards. I guess that is just typical British weather, it simply cannot make its mind up on what to do, so it tries to do everything. A nice start to the week though, none to stressful and some glorious scenery accoss Saddleworth Moor.

A simple start

As the name suggests I like to travel. I do a lot of travelling around the UK as part of my job and a fair bit more around the world when on holiday. At the time of writing I have been to 19 countries, 36 airports and a fair few seaports. Today however is a Sunday and on a Sunday I like to do as little as possible and not go anywhere if I have a choice. Travelling is good but their truly is no place like home.