Wednesday 13th February 2013

On the way home from work on Tuesday night, I got a call on my mobile. As I was driving, I couldn’t answer it, but would once I got to where I was to pick up Jools from. As I went over the A2, I saw that there were Police blocking traffic from joining it, and had I noticed it, I would have seen it was empty of any traffic.

I called Jools to return her call; she said the buses were not on time and she was at the end of Coombe Valley Road. Oh, I’ll come and pick you up I said. And set off to head down past Archer’s Court. It was then I realised something was wrong. Traffic was solid right up to Tesco, I waited in line for a while before trying Whitfield Hill as I thought it might be easier. I had to queue 10 minutes at the roundabout and joined the long queue down the Hill. I called Jools to tell her to start walking up London Road and we would meet up.

In 20 minutes I got down Whitfield Hill and along London Road to near where we used to Live on Crabble Hill. Jools was walking up the hill to meet me, so I turned round and once she climbed in we headed off up the hill. Our plan was to head through the lanes near Church Whitield to Guston then up to St Margaret’s; simples.

We headed down a narrow twisty lane, passing the odd car coming the other way, until a train of cars appeared heading back towards Dover. The front car stopped and the driver told me a lorry had got stuck on one of the 90 degree bends and the road was blocked. We turned round and tried a plan B.

A lot of people had the same idea as us, and so we were having to stop in passing places to let cars come the other way, or they stopped to let us go by. But we made progress. Thankfully, most of the signposts were still in place and pointing the right direction, and in time we made our way into Martin and up the hill to the Deal Road. From there it was a simple case of joining the traffic, a left turn onto Station Road and home; but it had taken two and a half hours to get home and it was now dark.



Terry had done some more work upstairs, but most of what he could do was stopped as he had to glue the shower base in place and now wait for 24 hours for it to dry before it could be plumbed in and then do the tiling. But we have a working WC up there and a basin that leaks, but it is looking a bit like a bathroom again.

I quickly cooked some bacon and dinner was just bacon butties and a cuppa, but that seemed to be enough. At eight, I sat down to watch Celtic play in the Champions League; it seems ages since I watched a whole game. It was a good game, and Celtic played well, but were caught by three Juventus sucker punches to end the first leg 3-0 down and almost out. Oh well.

And that was our evening; lots of driving down icy lanes, just wide enough for one car to go down, getting into hedges to allow other cars to pass.

As each day passes a little more is done in the bathroom and it looks a bit more like a bathroom should.