Devon

I slept quite well, but was awake early again.
I needed to get ahead of myself today because Sharon had switched her cleaning days and I didn’t really want to be packing up to get away, while she was trying to clean.

Even if I am not going to be away for long, everything takes a while. Today I needed to get the rubbish bins out to the front and ready for Thursday’s collection. The garden waste bin is full of rank grass cuttings.

The dish washer needed loading and there was a small clothes wash to get done and dried. H’s stuff needed a bit of a sort out too.

But I got there in the end, and left home soon after 10.00, earlier than anticipated, so Sharon would have the place to herself.

I headed for Newbury because I wanted to visit Hobbycraft for some thread and better paintbrushes. But, luckily, I remembered Streatley Hill was scheduled to be closed (again) so made it to the A34 via Blewbury and Upton.

The A34 was flowing well, (unlike further north where there was a serious accident this evening) as was the traffic in Newbury town centre, and the Retail park was far from busy. Hobbycraft contained a few excited youngsters, due to Halloween, and I purchased a few assorted bits and pieces and a sandwich from Costa.

Things were going unexpectedly well so far…

But I speak too soon because I drove South past Burghclere to rejoin the A34 at Tothill. Gloom and doom descended because there were two lanes of barely moving traffic occupying the highway. This persisted all the way to the A303, about 12 miles of it.

I realised there was an orange flasher a mile or more ahead of me- down to an oversized vehicle of some sort. It was travelling around 35 mph and no one could get past because of having to let cars from the congested inner lane join the congested outer lane. Then a blue flasher appeared behind me. I do hope it was not too serious inside because that blue flashing ambulance was not really going anywhere. Certainly not fast.

‘Please don’t let that slow oversized thing turn on to the A303,’ I thought to myself. Thankfully, it did not.

The journey was quite reasonable – the odd ups were bad hold ups. New major road works have sprung up between Solstice Services and Stonehenge. Serious roadworks with areas for heavy plant to turn off and park up with big red square signs to direct it – like G1. Good knows what they are doing.

Then there was the horse transporter which crawled along and also the tractor…

The Budget ‘entertained’ me during some of the drive.

But I arrived only ten minutes after the original ETA, which was mainly due to the Newbury fiasco.

Pen took H for a lovely long walk. I admired the garden and pool area. Evie came and went around her work hours and a boyfriend appeared later in the evening. Frankie also appeared home from London, quite a lot later. A catch up will wait until tomorrow.

Fleur, back in Streatley, is involved in 3 days of work experience at RBH. Today she was in Radiology, learning about, and looking at, different types of scan. Ironically, and certainly completely coincidentally, the consultant was an acquaintance of Ali and Dave. Her next two days will be in acute medicine and renology.

Thought for the Day