Elephants by the Motorway?

Not for the first time, this has been a week of ups and downs.  Monday was a good example of the way the national network is favourable to us drivers. It began with a very small consignment for Market Harborough, and I was invited to wait a short while to see what else might be going that way. In a very few minutes I was sent to Royston for a couple of boxes going to Derby. Once these had all been delivered, I phoned the nearby Nottingham office, collected an envelope for them from Castle Donnington, and then took another small load from Loughborough to Birmingham on my way home.

Tuesday and Wednesday brought only two jobs apiece, with Wednesday being one of this year's leanest days.  On Thursday morning my thoughts turned to income once more, and my prayers included an earnest reference to a cup filled to overflowing.  The spiritual effort wasn't in vain for, within the hour, I was on my way to Kempston to collect some metalwork for a firm near Wakefield.  This time it was the Leeds office who provided the complement to the day, with a collection in the middle of Sheffield for a factory out in the countryside not far from Coventry.

But the day was not yet finished. On my way home I was invited to make three deliveries of prescription medicines to old people's homes in Hitchin, and then - with some hesitation after last week's disappointment when a Scottish job had failed to materialise - I was offered an early pick-up from a national company at the other end of the county, for delivery to two of their other plants, one on the outskirts of Liverpool and the other in North Lanarkshire.

So it was that yesterday morning, with unexpected calmness, I set out on a more unusual route into Scotland.  I had decided that it wouldn't be clever to consider sleeping in the van at this time of year, and particularly in view of some recent problems with a shoulder, so on my way I phoned ahead to book a room at the truckstop in Carlisle.  I made the Liverpool delivery by about 1.0, with little bother.  Then came the interesting part of the trip.  It was interesting not, for once, because of any difficulty, but simply literally. That middle section of the M6 is one that I rarely use; if I'm going to Scotland from home the better route is up the A1 to Scotch Corner, so I don't usually hit the M6 until Penrith.  This time, though, there was no choice and, although it feels a long way and the radio signal is intermittent, the scenery is magnificent.  Perhaps irreverently, I decided that the rolling slopes of the fells to the east of the motorway required only a few strategically-placed fir trees to resemble closely a number of retreating elephants!

One thing that did concern me, however, was the weather.  This was the day after storm Abigail had caused a number of electrical outages, and had attacked the west of Scotland with extremely high winds.  The matrices on the motorways were cautioning about side winds and lots of spray, but apart from just a short burst of rain there was no appreciable problem until I was well into Scotland.  The last few junctions along the M74, however, disappeared in deep concentration as I stuck to my course with only intermittent visibility between the deluge of spray thrown up by the lorries.

Although I've made that trip to Motherwell a number of times before, I found that my route this time was longer, owing to the constant development work on the road system in the area; while memory told me that I needed go only a couple of miles from the motorway, this time it was at least ten, having left it at a different junction, which was itself in the midst of a very muddy re-construction.  My delivery completed by 5.0, I began the slow return home.  To my utmost pleasure, the rain had stopped by Lockerbie, and the roads almost dried up by the time I was back into England.  After over 500 miles and more than eleven hours of almost constant driving, I was ready for a break, a meal and a restful (if not luxurious) evening.

This morning I was greeted by the awful contrast of dry roads and a gentle dawn, accompanied by the ghastly news of the bloody events last night in Paris.  By Scotch Corner, I was glad to stop and find some comforting normality in breakfast at the Moto services there.  From then on, accompanied by a couple of CDs I'd brought along for the purpose, the journey was plain sailing, and I was home, even after stopping for some shopping, by 12.15.

Now to fit all the usual weekend essentials into what's left of the weekend; ... what was that about an easy way into retirement?