What better way to spend a Friday than travelling on the M6 ? Come with me as we negotiate the various hazards and joys of Britain’s longest motorway. I’ll try to make it interesting, but feel free to drop out if you find yourself getting bored.
It all started so well, leaving home at 4:30 AM (!) and heading off into the dark. Oddly, there were a couple of girls at the end of the street who were watching us and giggling. Rachel went to ask them what they were doing at such an ungodly hour, but they turned out to be a couple of teenagers who went for a walk because they “couldn’t sleep in the heat.”
Dawn came up as we joined the M6 at Carlisle, and the sunshine on the mountains as we approached the Lake District made the place look like a watercolour landscape. By the time we got to Phoenix – sorry, Tebay – I could hear the sausage sandwiches calling. The first one I’d treated myself to in months. Imagine my dismay when I dropped most of it on the floor.
There were some strange advertising efforts on display as we moved south. These included a giraffe on a trailer, then (separately) a mother and new baby in a pram on the same kind of display in the middle of a field, advertising I know not what. Neither of these were real of course, and nor was Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen who, rather disturbingly, was looking at us from a billboard near Stoke, imploring us to get a better bathroom.
I can’t say that the van driver above was in any way responsible for the accident near Stoke where a lorry had driven into a pillar. But it must’ve been his brand of dangerous driving that contributed to the event. He cut across two lanes and nearly hit us. Avoid him if you ever encounter him.
The accident created such a long queue that it was mentioned on Radio 2, by Richie Anderson, the ”Travel Guru,” who later went on to read out a text that I had sent in an hour or so previously. I’m a radio tart in case you didn’t know.
A stop at Hilton Park Services saw me casting my Slimming World caution to the winds and enjoying a yum yum from Greggs. Well worth the side order of guilt that I had with it, and even the feeling of my teeth disintegrating under the cover of all that sugar. I’d had a near death experience with that van so this was an emotional reaction to it. That’s my excuse anyway.
Stopping at Gordano services we enjoyed sandwiches in the rain. Call me a miser if you will but I didn’t want to mortgage my house for one of the ones on offer at most services and anyway home made are better. Just the right balance of mustard, sardines and banana. Lovely.
The family playlist that we had on during the journey had reached Grace Jones’ “Pull up to the Bumper” just in time for us to sit in traffic for a while as we inched towards Cornwall. It took us twelve hours to reach Mevagissey. But what a beautiful little place it is.
We managed to get a pint in at the Cellar Bar, having had our temperature taken on the way in. One thing is for sure, this holiday is going to be different….
Steve's Journal 