Wednesday 26th March 2025

Wednesday.

And time for a road trip.

Two tasks to do in the Greater Manchester area: 1. return my IT equipment to the UK head office in Warrington, and 2. Pick up Sylv as she's cat sitting.

Jools borrowed Jen's car, as Jen was riding shotgun with me.

It was going to be a glorious early spring day, lots of sunshine, light winds, good company, and the only problem was the Great British traffic.

The road system is a mess: poorly thought out from the start, poorly built due to underfunding and poor workmanship, and now the country lacking the money to fix the issues.

And the ten trillion cars that are on the roads every day of the week.

Jools left for work at half six, giving me two hours to get my shit together, load the car and be on the road for soon after nine once the schools runs were over.

And I remembered to update my debit cart for the DART charge.

Wheels rolled at nine fifteen, over to Whitfield where Jen was ready. We put her stuff in the car and wheels rolled for the second time at half nine.

To get from Dover to Manchester, there are a number of routes; the first decision being to go either clockwise or anti-clockwise round the M25.

Anti-clockwise is shorter, but also means using the Dartford Crossing. Then either going across on the A14 from Cambridge to the bottom of the M6, or up the A1 and across the moors on the M62.

I like a good moor, so up the A1 it was.

Heck, the A2 was clear, the Dartford Crossing was (almost) clear, and we made good time to the M11 turn, so headed north.

I cruised at 70, and we made good time and chatted as I drove, dodging in and out of traffic before turning west on the A14 at the top of the motorway.

I have been using this road for so long, I can remember the A14 being built in 1990-91, it now has three lanes and is pretty much a motorway, at least to the A1 junction, where we turned north again.

We stopped at Peterborough services where we had a comfort break, and then a picnic as Jen had made sandwiches and coffee. So we sat in a picnic bench next to the car park and ate in the sunshine, while I fed crumbs to the crows and rooks waiting.

Then back in the car to carry on north.

Only issue was where a bridge was being repaired, and so the two lanes went down to one. OK, bridges and stuff wears out, but there was no one working on the bridge, just lots of equipment, and the two miles of single file traffic for a hundred yard long bridge repair?

Beats me.

We get through and turn west, finally, to go over the Pennines on the M62,which for a change was in brilliant sunshine, even up on Saddleworth Moor.

Down the other side and into Manchester and its smog.

Now: to go to the office straight away or save that treat for Thursday morning.

As it was a nice day and we had hours, we turned to go round the M60 north to Warrington.

In fact, traffic wasn't so bad, andwe got there in about 40 minutes.

I carried my IT stuff to the office, was shown to IT and he was amazed I was returning the power lead, as apparently no one does.

I needed to hand over my company credit card, but there was no one from Finance or HR to take it off me, so with a dozen witnesses, I cut it up and dropped the bits into the bin.

All over now.

Back to the car and out into the maze that is Birchwood, onto the motorway, and straight onto the back of a two mile jam waiting to get onto the ring road.

But we had time,

So, we inched along and then if not cruised, got along OK until we were three miles from Slylv's, and on the offramp to Kearsley.

That encountered and the traffic clogged roundabout, down into the village and just past the pub. One of the pubs. Into the estate and parked up outside Sylv's.

It was half four, but we had done it.

I had a well-earned brew, while Jen and Sylv has gin and tonics, and we talked.

And talked.

But by half six, thoughts turned to food, ad where to eat. The three pubs in the village didn't do food, or the one that did had mostly one star ratings on Tripadvisor.

The next nearest one did food, but there was a pb quiz on, so I drove in case we had to go somewhere else.

We parked outside the brightly lit Horseshoe Pub, and inside they squeezed us in and all was set.

We had to wait twenty minutes to be asked our drink order, then the lass got it wrong, and took against us for the rest of the evening.

We had to ask if we should put the order at the bar as another twenty minutes had passed, but she came over with a face that would turn fresh milk sour. She took the order, and I had something called rag pudding, expecting a beef suet pudding.

Not sure how to explain what did come: a beef filled parcel of either pastry or thin suet, and the meat insides, instead of chunks was mince.

But was tasty, as was the carrots, peas and chips, covered in gravy.

"Rag pudding is a savoury dish consisting of minced meat and onions wrapped in a suet pastry, which is then cooked in a cheesecloth. Invented in Oldham, the dish is also popular in Bury and Rochdale, and is eaten across the Lancashire area. Rag pudding pre-dates ceramic basins and plastic boiling bags in cookery, and so the cotton or muslin rag cloths common in Oldham were used in the dish's preparation during the 19th century." From Wikki.

Back home for a wine and then make up beds and time to get our heads down, and the long journey back home in the morning.