Tag Archives: Driving

The Need For Speed

16 Thursday Oct 2025

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We’re having a little bit of an upset in Ontario at the moment, surrounding that bête noir, speed cameras.

The Province’s Premier, the one in charge, says that speed cameras are nothing but a cash-grab and that he’s going enact legislation to make them unusable. This in a Province where speed limits seem to be merely suggestions and efforts to curb speed (and therefore improve road safety) are at best, minimal.

I learned to drive in a country where speed cameras are used extensively, namely the UK. When I go back, which seems to be quite often these days, I’m immediately aware of the speed discipline that drivers employ; in Ontario the speed limit seems to be the absolute minimum, in the UK they are generally abided by, and plenty of people drive well within the limit. Tellingly, there are twice the number of cars in the UK than there are in Canada, but only half as many injuries and fatalities on the roads. From this we can reasonably deduce that speed cameras are, at least in part, a boon to road safety. So why is Ontario so against something that will aid road safety?

It’s political. That’s about the strength of it. Speeding is a curse in Ontario, and you’ll regularly read about drivers cussing one another out because they were driving at the speed limit and not some speed well north of it. “Hand your license in if you can’t do 20 over” is a common refrain from the speeding fraternity. It seems that posted speed limits impinge on people’s personal freedom to drive at whatever speed they like, and hang the road safety implications because, “Hey, I’m a good driver!”. Our politicians see this expression of personal freedom as a vote winner and are being aggressive in reducing what they see as limitations of drivers in the hope of winning over, or at least retaining, the support of the supposedly put-upon drivers of the Province. People who are killed or injured speeding? Pfffft. It’s eerily reminiscent of the argument for gun ownership in the US, death and injury seems to be an acceptable price for personal freedom.

I’m at a bit of a loss to follow this logic. Drivers can’t be trusted to obey posted limit signs, so why would a responsible government not put in place a cheap and effective method of control? It’s only a cash-grab if you speed, and is so easily avoidable, but it also comes with a free side order of road safety, so what’s not to love?

I guess it will take the death or injury of a politician’s loved one, or a large number of ordinary people, for things to change, which is really a very sad state of affairs for the twenty-first century. In the meantime I will drive to the limits, avoid any cash-grabs (if there are any left), and hope that no one in orbit get hurt by a speeding driver. What a life.

Why The Hurry?

24 Wednesday Jul 2024

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I was reminded again this afternoon of just how much some people are in too much of a hurry when they’re driving. I had to make a right, on a red light, onto LaCroix Street, but to my left is a bridge. When I’m looking to see if the way is clear, I get about 100 metres of clear sight before the road dips down on the other side of the bridge. That 100m or so should be ample for me to pull out into the road when I can’t see another vehicle approaching from my left. But, and it’s a big but, if the approaching vehicle isn’t speeding. Sadly, they nearly always are. I looked left today, could see no vehicle approaching, so made my move. A quick glance in the mirror as I made the turn and there was a blue car bearing down on me at a rate of knots. No worries, I’m in my lane, but why did the driver of the blue car feel the need to come hurtling over the bridge like that? The car was something anonymous, but it had a personalized licence plate and the driver was a young woman bobbing around in her seat, hopefully to some music. She passed me, but less than 200m ahead I passed her again as we both drew to a stop at the next set of lights.

Quite possibly because I’m officially a Senior these days, and I’m retired, but I genuinely don’t see why everyone is rushing around. The young woman in the blue car gained nothing by driving so fast, and I crossed Richmond Street before her, despite my sticking to the 50Kph speed limit, so what was the point? You see it all the time with people make risky passes on ordinary roads, only for me to come right up behind them at the next set of lights. I absolutely do not get the rushing around when 99% of the time there is absolutely no benefit to speeding and taking unnecessary risks.

I’m certain that people who encounter me on the road cuss and curse me because I don’t generally exceed the speed limit. They’ll call me grandad, and get seriously bent out of shape because they perceive that I’m driving too slowly. Maybe I did when I was younger, although I don’t really remember if I was a one to hurry, even when riding my motorcycle in London.

Anyway, I will continue to drive in an unhurried manner. I will stay aware of people who are in a hurry (even though I know what they do is pointless), and I will keep up with the flow of traffic, up to the posted speed limit, at least. If everyone did that then there’d be far fewer road collisions.

That last sentence reminds me of the fellow who made a Facebook post claiming that he’d been stopped by the cops for driving at the speed limit, and asked why he wasn’t doing at least ten over. If that happened then I’m a Dutchman’s uncle.

Ah, Technology (Part 2)

14 Sunday Jul 2024

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I like maps, and modern digitized mapping is really quite excellent. Instant access to the maps across the world, satellite imagery and Street View, what could be better? Well, understanding its limitations would be a start.

Satellite based navigation for cars really opened up the possibilities, and now cellphone-based navigation systems are bringing in a raft of developments in route planning, especially with traffic information available pretty much in real time. So if I like it so much, where’s my gripe? As it happens, it’s two-fold.

Firstly, the visibility of the map on your hand-held or inboard device is quite limited, generally around 500 metres, even on the big screens available in modern cars. The whole premise of navigation seems to based on that 500m, and the designers of the systems appear to think that you don’t need any more immediate information than that. In a big city with intersections every few yards, I’d agree, but outside of the city, that 500m is pretty paltry. It’s probably just me, but I like to be looking way, way further afield so that I can anticipate things that the navigation system doesn’t let you know, like whether your turn two miles away is to the left or the right. You could argue that you don’t need that information, but I can’t drive without having a general idea of where I’m going. There’s the rub, of course, you may not need that information but without it you’ll end up having to make snap decisions and quite possibly mistakes, all that could have been avoided with more advance information.

The second part of the gripe is the way systems’ developers want to decide the parameters of your journey for you. The prime example is the manner in which systems will constantly suggest route changes as you’re driving, just so that you can potentially save a minute here or a minute there. Seriously chaps, why would be be bothered about single minutes? I drove in a rented car from Plymouth to Manchester and had the navigation system constantly suggesting route changes, to a point at which it became intrusive. I spent some time trying to get the system to stop making suggestions, but when set to “Quickest Route”, those suggestions were not optional. That particular system, in an Audi, sent us on three different routes on three different days between the same two points. Interesting for sure, but why? I couldn’t discern that any of the routes was better than the other. I can’t imagine a long(ish) drive where you did take up all of the system’s supposed time saving route alterations.

There are myriad stories of people being directed down inappropriate roads by their navigation systems and I can’t help thinking that with a bit more information, a wider view, people might not be inclined to blindly follow the instructions.

My solution is to peruse a map before I travel, paper or digital. That way I can get a feel for where I’m going, and use the navigation system to augment that broader information. Travelling across London (Ontario) yesterday, I had checked on a digital map to see that I’d need to be travelling from east west to catch a link road that ran north to south. The cellphone navigation system called out the turns, but I was at least able to follow the wider route I had lodged in my memory by making sure I was moving in the correct direction.

OK, it is me, normal people manage with navigation systems just as they are. Me, though, I still like that broader view.

England ’23 – Heading to That London

24 Friday Nov 2023

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My missus is good at logistics, so she did the packing, ready for us to head down the motorway to London first thing. We were more or less on time as we headed out of Holmfirth for the last time.

The car’s navigation system plotted a route for us, but I ignored her and made for the M1 on my favoured route, despite her ever-increasing anxiety as I deviated. It being Saturday, the motorway southbound was busy, but not with trucks, just (mostly) cars. It was slow around Sheffield, but never to the point of stopping, and apart from a natural break at the Watford Gap Services, we had a clear run to our lunch appointment in Northampton.

Rejoining the M1 at about three in the afternoon, the traffic still wasn’t too bad, and we got to the North Circular pretty much without stopping. Then it was London traffic, but you’d expect that.

We arrived in Lower Clapton/Hackney Downs at our rented flat just as the sun was disappearing, had a breather, dropped the bags off, then climbed back into the car to return it to the rental company at Heathrow.

My first mistake was deciding to allow the Navi to guide me. Before I knew what was happening on the dark and busy streets, I was heading south down Old Street and into the London Congestion Zone. I was really trying to avoid getting stiffed for another £15 to enter the zone, but I genuinely didn’t see the signs. The traffic was hideous, and we crawled along the edge of the Square Mile, up into Holborn (and past a lot of places I have worked), then I decided to go my way to airport rather than that decided by the lady in the Navi. A crawl up Southampton Row to Russell Square, then Tavistock Square, and we eventually emerged onto the Euston Road. My plan was to use the A40 up to Hanger Lane, not the most direct route for sure, then run down the North Circular to Chiswick to pick up the A4 and M4. My idea was that I could refuel the car at Chiswick, and that plan actually worked out. But we crawled all the way from Euston to Hangar Lane, bought petrol in Chiswick as planned, and joined the thousands of other slow moving vehicles on the M4. We did eventually get to Heathrow Terminal 5, and after a bit of searching, found the Sofitel and the Sixt car returns. It took us longer to cross London, around 35 miles, than it did to drive all the way down from Holmfirth, which was 188 miles. That’s driving in London for you.

I enjoyed the little Audi A3 we had, but after a fair few thousands of miles, I was happy to park her and get out onto public transport. We had tickets for the Heathrow Express train and were in London’s Paddington station very quickly. From there it was the Tube to Liverpool Street, an overground train to Hackney Downs, and a ten minute walk to get back to the flat. No driving. Wonderful.

As a postscript, I had the invoice from Sixt car rental and I’m happy to report no penalties. I was very happy to rent from them.

I’ll do a separate post about the quite unique place we’re staying in, but I will say that the bed is very, very comfortable.

England ’23 – A Note About Driving

24 Friday Nov 2023

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Driving in England is certainly quite different than driving in Canada, or indeed North America. It’s not about driving on the left in the UK, although if you’ve never done it that could faze you, it’s more about the sheer quantity of cars and trucks on the roads, and how people drive in a way to keep things moving.

UK roads are rarely straight and rarely wide, so the new arrival to the country needs to think about the car they want to hire. Big cars are a disadvantage in so many ways, not least in petrol (gas) costs (gas is so much more expensive in the UK), the general width of the roads, and the parking. Oh, the parking!

The speed limit on the motorway is 70mph, unless signed otherwise. But trucks are limited to 60mph, as are any vehicles towing trailers, so that left driving lane gets pretty full. There are also many people who do not drive at the limit, keeping it somewhere between 55 and 70. That will sound odd to Canadian And US drivers, but the traffic everywhere is so heavy that it’s very often not safe to drive any faster. Lane discipline is fairly good, people don’t hog the right lane (of three), although slower drivers do get caught in the centre lane sometimes, but that’s down to the heavy traffic. To keep moving at a sensible speed, you have to be very aware of the big picture, know what’s ahead and what’s behind so that you can anticipate lane changes well ahead. But here’s the thing, everyone’s doing the same thing and most are going to be very co-operative. If you signal a lane change then others will move to allow you out, or adjust their speed. It really is driving with co-operation.

In the same vein, when someone passes you, they’ll pull back in front of you so closely that it looks dangerous. But, as I’ve found on this trip, they’re just doing the lane discipline thing and move on to build the gap between themselves and you as quickly as they can. There’s no slowing, or braking, they just get going.

The co-operative driving goes further on regular roads. People driving along will often slow slightly to allow someone else to join the traffic from a side road. There seems to be an understanding and the person in the side road pulls out and everyone just gets on their way, there’s little in the way of insisting on rights, it’s just being co-operative. The driver who lets someone join the traffic will be the driver in the side road next time, so everyone gets it. I’m talking generally, of course, because there are some idiots out there, but generally it all works quite well. I haven’t come across the “established right of way” during this trip. That’s where someone pulls out across the road and waits (to turn right, typically), essentially blocking the traffic in one lane. That’s allowed in the UK when the road is clear to start with and you’re considered to have established a right of way in so doing. I tried that in Canada once and I swear the buggers would have driven straight into me if they could have. Once again, this is an example of co-operative driving.

In a lot of the bigger cities, London particularly, the speed limit has been reduced to 20mph. That will sound crazy to North Americans, but on tight, congested roads it actually works. Slower speeds keep the traffic moving, and when someone does pull out across your lane, you have plenty of thinking and stopping time. Add to that the fact that the limits are quite rigidly enforced, with speed cameras everywhere, and you get people driving to the rules. It’s a breath of fresh air, I can tell you.

There are also lots of roundabouts and Give Way (Yield) intersections, which I think keep the traffic moving as well. Roundabouts are often very small and just painted on the road, but if you just yield to the traffic on the right, they’re easy to use. In Canada I get quite irritated at the need to keep stopping at Stop signs and stop lights, so Yields and roundabouts keep me happy.

On the negative side, though, the UK can be a tough place to drive. Narrow roads, steep hills and very heavy traffic all combine to make driving a real chore sometimes. Petrol costs are about 30% higher, and parking is almost always paid, and very often really difficult to find. Bus lanes are everywhere, and you really can’t use them in the car, unless you want a hefty fine. With the weight of traffic generally, congestion can be a serious problem, and journey times can often double because of it. For the visitor, if you’re staying in London or another big city, ditch the car and rely on public transit. It’s cheap and plentiful, and believe me, it’s a lot less stressful.

England ’23 – Eastwards

22 Wednesday Nov 2023

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A day in the car was the plan, and so it turned out to be.

We set off across the hills towards Barnsley, joined the motorway to head north to York, then left the motorway and drove gently through the Wolds to one of Yorkshire’s most easterly points, Flamborough Head.

The traffic was reasonable the whole way, the weather was better than it could have been, and the driving seemed quite easy, even with the truck traffic on the motorways. We had seen, or rather passed, Barnsley, Wakefield, Leeds, Tadcaster and York, running through the delightfully named village of Wetwang, onto Bridlington and finally Flamborough Head.

Flamborough Head is a chalky outcrop that juts out into the North Sea, about halfway up Yorkshire’s East Coast. There is a working Trinity House Lighthouse up there, plus some other navigational equipment used by today’s ships. High up on the cliff top, the white(ish) cliffs looked marvellous standing in the fairly calm sea, and the view up and down the coastline was excellent, especially as it wasn’t raining and there was good visibility.

Flamborough Head is known as a haven for migratory birds, and while it was the wrong time of year for the Puffins, there were Shearwaters, Cormorants and many types of gulls to be seen. The stars of the visit, though, and in abundance, were the Seals. We saw them in the water first, heads up like a load of grey buoys, but diving below the surface to reappear a few yards away. Moving around to look down on another beach, we saw the Seals laying on the shingle and sand, easily a of hundred of them, big and small, laying still or fighting with each other. I had never seen so many Seals like that, except on TV, so that was quite the sight, even if we had to stand perilously close to the edge of the hundred foot cliff to see them.

We dawdled for quite a while there, watched the boats, big and small, fishing the local waters, and while couldn’t quite see The Netherlands from our vantage point, we could see an oil rig out on the horizon. It was very wet underfoot, though, and the surprisingly large number of visitors there, given that it was a grey Monday in November, were churning up the grass and making all the pathways into rivers of mud. Winter sightseeing, eh?

From Flamborough we took the coast road to Robin Hood’s Bay, a little fishing village nestled at the top and bottom of a cliff, where the North York Moors meet the North Sea. On the family tree front, I have a a picture of my mum, my dad and my uncle at Robin Hood’s Bay, taken in the very early 1950s. I wasn’t out to recreate the photograph, but it was nice to know that my mum and dad had been here together.

Private cars are not allowed to drive down to the lower level of the village, as there’s no room to park at the bottom, and very few spaces to turn around, so everyone must park at the top and walk down. Top marks to the Council for closing all the Pay and Display parking machines for the winter, as I do love a bit of free parking. Before we started our descent, though, we availed ourselves of a very nice two-course lunch (it would have been three but there was too much to eat), at the Victoria Hotel. The food was good, much on the vegan menu for the good Mrs. M., and the view across the bay was second to none.

The walk down into the old village was steep, but the little houses built up high into the valley sides, were gorgeous. It’s very touristy, as you’d expect, and most things were still open despite the lateness of the year, for which I applaud the local business owners. Mind you, there was no shortage of people down there, and on the beach, so I guess there was money to be made. It’s quite the place, with the stone built rows of cottages clinging to the cliff. I can see why it’s such a popular destination.

The walk back up to the car was also steep, just in the wrong direction. We took it easy, though, as befits old people, and attained the car park without a medical emergency.

From Robin Hood’s Bay we went still further north, to Whitby. We might have had a look around there only it was virtually dark by the time we emerged from the Sainsbury’s store. Well, there are always things you need, aren’t there?

We were a long way from Holmfirth at this point, much closer to Teesside than York, so we knew we’d be in for a long drive back. We elected though, in the spirit of more family tree work, to visit the Forrester’s Arms, a pub in the North Yorkshire village of Kilburn. My uncle had run the pub in the sixties, and we visited in 1968 and stayed there a week. This was my first trip back since then. The drive from Whitby took us over the moors, which are not very interesting in the dark, and through Pickering and Helmsley. When we needed to drop down off the moor and into the Vale of York, we took the back road down Sutton Bank, a steep run down a big escarpment. It would have been fun in the daylight, but it was dark and raining, so the single-track road with it’s hairpin bends and precipitous drops, was even more fun. The odd thing was that once down the hill, we were in the flattest of flat farmland, and quickly coming to a halt in the village square, right in front of the pub.

The place had been spruced up somewhat but was essentially as I remembered. I enjoyed a good pint of Theakston’s Bitter and listened to the other customers with their broad Yorkshire accents. It was lovely. It would have been nice to stay longer, and eat from the extensive menu, but it had been a long day.

The run back south allowed us to hit trunk roads for much of the journey, running from Thirsk to Barnsley on motorways alone. The run back from Barnsley to Holmfirth wasn’t so much fun, pitch dark on wet roads, but we made it safely.

The day had turned out as anticipated, a long drive but some great sightseeing and a wonderful grown ups lunch. An excellent day’s vacation.

England ’23 – Coronation Street

21 Tuesday Nov 2023

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Today we went to Manchester. Not to a trendy eatery, or a hot night spot, but to the set of TV’s longest running soap opera, Coronation Street.

The “Coronation Street Experience” is a tour of the actual set, a closed area in the part of Manchester known as Media City UK. A largish group of us was given a guided tour of the set, at least the bits they use to film the exteriors for the show, and jolly nice it was, too. The Street has been going since 1960, and I have watched it on and off since the late sixties, so there was a genuine interest here. The tour guide, Alfie, was quite good, being professional, funny and he found time to impart some little nuggets of information that I’d not heard before. He gave us some insight to the tricks that are used to make each corner of the set look bigger than it actually is, and how they give the impression that places are further away from each other than the reality, which is usually quite different. Of course, standing on the actual Corrie cobbles was the real treat.

The little exhibition area after the set tour was interesting, including such delights as all the dead character’s coffin nameplates, which was hardly mawkish at all. One big omission was the actors’ names, which were nowhere to be seen, perhaps in an attempt to continue the fantasy.

It was a fun morning, though, especially for the real fans.

I should mention the Imperial War Museum North, right next door. It’s free and while we didn’t see its exhibitions, we did buy some stuff in the gift shop. The museum’s parking, which was where us Corrie types had to park, was run by National Car Parks (NCP). They use a fancy system of spying your plate as you enter and then you can pay as you leave, or later online. One fellow hadn’t worked the system out, had driven in and paid up front. The system of course assumed that he was leaving and gave him ten minutes to leave before being given a penalty charge. Did I mention he was Irish? He did!

After the Street, we hit the M&S Foodhall that lies within the shadow of Old Trafford Stadium, home of Manchester United (boo hiss), and sampled some of Manchester’s finest traffic jams.

Then it was over to Leeds, across the Pennines, to visit the house I was born in on this very day, sixty-five years ago. I hadn’t been back since 1959, which is quite the gap, but at the least the place was still standing, and looked much as it did all those years ago (I don’t have that good a memory, but I do have the photographic evidence). Someone has taken the Blue Plaque off the wall, though… (If you know, you know). The good Mrs. Mayne wanted me to go and knock on the door and introduce myself, but that would be so far beyond my comfort zone that it doesn’t even bear thinking about. I took photographs instead, although even that was a bit dodgy.

As the sun disappears at about 3:45pm in northern England, the light was fading fast. However, we managed a quick dash to Lawnswood Cemetery to have a look at my Grandparents’ grave, something I’d never done before. Given that they both died before I was born there wasn’t too much of an emotional issue for me, but it was a significant task on my list of things to do. I also searched out another family grave (it wasn’t far away), which will add nicely to my family tree knowledge.

Driving in Leeds is a bit of an eye-opener, even on a Sunday. It’s not a huge place but the traffic is constantly heavy, and everyone else seems to be in a dreadful hurry. However, we burst out of the City limits, past Leeds United’s Elland Road ground (again) and headed south on the M1. As we cut across the hills towards Holmfirth, I made a mental not to take too much notice of the Google lady giving instructions, because she had some pretty odd routes for me to take.

My birthday meal was taken at the famous Compo’s Fish and Chip restaurant in Holmfirth. Compo is a reference to the TV show previously mentioned, of course. The food was nice, and the service good, especially given that it was a Sunday night. It most definitely would not have been open in Canada.

Back at the cottage, I made the mistake of trying to reposition the car on its steep, cobbled parking space and found out about the limits of tyre traction on wet cobbles. I discovered that the only way to do it was to take a run at the cobbles and try to stop before hitting the wall. What fun.

It was a long day, and an enjoyable day, and we ticked three things off the list, so that was good.

England ’23 – Bramble Cottage

20 Monday Nov 2023

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We booked a week in the Yorkshire town of Holmfirth, just on the northern edge of the Peak District and just a few miles east of the border with Lancashire. The area is known as the location for the (very long lived, maybe overly-long lived) TV series, The Last of the Summer Wine and is undoubtedly a beautiful part of the country.

Bramble Cottage is a nineteenth century workers’ cottage, perched on the steep valley sides, and overlooking the centre of the village. The cottage itself has been wonderfully refurbished by the owners, who live next door, and it’s a very comfortable one bedroom holiday let, with every modern convenience. The original cottage would have been just one room downstairs and one room upstairs, but the owners have dug into the hillside at the back to create space for a modern, if narrow, kitchen downstairs, and a bathroom upstairs. It was warm inside, even though it was stone built and prone to a little condensation, and to be honest, we couldn’t fault it.

It’s not a great place if you’re not too steady on your pins, though, as all the slopes are very steep, and it’s quite a climb up from the town below. We’d been warned that the parking space was small, which it was, but the hill it was on was really quite steep. You had to take a run at it in the car, avoiding the low walls and parked cars, because once on the cobbled surface, there was no grip at all. If you didn’t get into the space first time then you had to roll back to the asphalted road to start again. you’re also going to have to have total confidence in your handbrake. I’m making it sound worse than it was, because after a couple of days I had it mastered. There was alternative parking, but it would need a walk up a steep cobbled path to reach it.

The cottage’s location worked very well for us as we visited Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool, all without going much beyond an hour’s drive away. The roads in the town, or at least in the valleys, were scarily narrow and steep, and had parked cars everywhere. I know parked cars act as speed limiters, but when you’re not used to hill starts, blind bends and gaps just big enough to take a car, it’s challenging. We had a very nice Audi A3 as a rental, with an automatic gearbox and handbrake, and they were both put to the severest tests.

My only complaint about Holmfirth, and it applies equally across Yorkshire and probably beyond, was the constant traffic. On the two main streets it was never ending, even in early November. It’s not like there is no public transit, either, because there were plenty of buses. But we have all become accustomed to being able to drive anywhere we like, and that’s what the problem is. I am of course extremely aware that in our rental car, we were part of the problem, and I fully accept that.

Would I go back to Bramble Cottage? Yes, I would. That is the best recommendation of all.

England ’23 – Yorkshire-bound

20 Monday Nov 2023

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Saturday November 4th

Plymouth Travelodge hotel. It’s Saturday morning, 3am, and I’ve woken in a sweat and heard someone clumping around the room above. At 3am. My trip to the loo woke the missus, and we lay chatting in the dark for quite a while trying to decipher the sounds from above. My conclusion was that there were wakeful children moving around, but who knows in these basic but reasonably priced hotels?

We did go back to sleep, but my alarm was set for 6:30am, so it wasn’t long before I was up again. With a five or six hour drive ahead of us, a broken night’s sleep wasn’t in the plan. Still, we did have plenty of time to prepare.

Our first stop, though, was the Tesco Extra superstore, that cornucopia all things grocery related, and a bit more. We had a list of a few basics to buy for the coming week in God’s Country, Yorkshire, plus some exciting things to take for the journey. We also bought some Cornish Pasties in Warreners (“The Oldest Pastie Maker In Plymouth”), which was conveniently located next to Tesco. Handy, that.

Oh, and we bought petrol, knowing how expensive it would be at the motorway service centres. It was £1.53 a litre at Tesco. Make a note of that.

I set the Navi (it’s been promoted from being a Sat Nav, or Twat Nav, to being a Navi) for our destination and watched the system work things out for us. From our location, Plymouth, it would be a drive of 307 Miles (494 Km), to Holmfirth, and would take a little over five hours if we didn’t stop or get held up. I didn’t really need the Navi, at least not until Manchester, but it was good to watch the miles and the time slowly drop on the display.

It being Saturday, and still relatively early, the roads were surprisingly busy, but did lack the usual big trucks. The weather was fairly calm as well, so we were off the A38 and onto the M5 at Exeter in good time. We stopped at Sedgemoor, just south of Bristol for a natural break and a pastie, before negotiating Bristol, which wasn’t so bad, even through the road works.

Remember I asked you to note the price of petrol in Plymouth? £1.53? Well here at Sedgemoor services on the M5, that same petrol was £1.83 a litre. For those with number difficulties, that 30 pence per litre difference, and I have no idea how that can be justified.

North of Bristol we encountered some dreadful rain. We could see it coming, too, and it didn’t disappoint. Then around Worcester, still in the rain, we were reduced to a crawl for quite a while, supposedly for road works, but I didn’t see any.

South of Birmingham, the Navi decided to change the agreed route, supposedly because of heavy traffic. I didn’t hear her instructions at first, partly because of the noise of the rain, and partly because there appears to be a glitch in the Navi software whereby, we can’t increase the nice lady’s voice volume. Anyway, I ignored her and carried on up the M5 towards Walsall and the M6. We had another stop, this time at Frankley Services, just to the south-west of Birmingham. The M&S sandwiches were very nice.

Back on the road, the Navi kept trying to re-route us, and I kept ignoring her, and we crawled up to, though, and past, the junction with the M6. We pressed on, through Staffordshire and Cheshire, before a last stop, at Knutsford this time, for a quick splash and dash.

Here we left the M6 and veered eastwards, onto the ring of motorways surround Manchester. The roads were teeming with expensive cars here, all racing around at speed, which gives some indication that there’s money in Manchester, and the place is living up to it’s perceived reputation as England’s second city. Leaving that particular vehicular hellscape at Ashton-Under-Lyne, we started into the Pennine Hills at Mossley, though villages made of darkened stone, although they were bright with the shops and pubs open. The rain was still coming down, and the hill tops were shrouded in mist, so by the time we had reached the top of Saddleworth Moor, it was foggy, rainy and getting dark, even though it was only about 3:30pm.

Then it was across the border into Yorkshire, down into the deep valley of the River Holme, and into the little town of Holmfirth. We were nearly there.

We did take an alternate route through Holmfirth to Bramble cottage, up steep hills, narrow and littered with parked cars. The oncoming cars were without mercy, dashing around as locals tend to do in these places, and at the very last right turn I had to make, across the traffic, a car sped around the blind bend and we both screeched to a halt. The other car, who had the right of way, simply passed me on the wrong side of the road and carried on with his or her speedy descent of the hill.

The final couple of hundred yards of narrow road, again narrowed with parked cars, was completed at walking pace and with very little room to spare on either side of the car. But then Bramble Cottage appeared through the rain, and we had arrived, just about seven hours after we had left Plymouth. The two hours on top of the Navi’s estimate was down to the driving breaks, and to the on-road delays, but for all that, I was happy to get there before 4pm.

I was knackered, though, and my bed beckoned, especially as it was pretty much completely dark by the time we’d unloaded the car.

There will be more about Bramble Cottage in a later post, as I get a chance to sort through the photographs.

England ’23 – Back Home

19 Sunday Nov 2023

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Or: “That Went Far Too Quickly”

We’re back from our jaunt to our ancestral homeland, and ancestral home in fact. I have returned with a handful of draft blog entries which I will clean up, add photos, and publish, probably in chronological order, although it’s not important if they’re not in time order.

Firstly, though, I wanted to say a word or two about the drivers in Ontario. I drove for ten days in England, and while the traffic is dreadful there, the drivers are generally not. They drive in a co-operative manner, never putting people in danger to maintain a right of way, largely sticking to the speed limit, understanding that the limit is not the minimum, and being aware of what’s going on around them. Of course, in that little country there are far more cars than the whole of Canada, which will make for attentive drivers, but those wide open spaces on this side of the pond make for some pretty awful drivers.

Coming back along the 401 today, we witnessed everyone, and I mean everyone, speeding. The 100kph limit is entirely ignored and 110 seems to be the absolute minimum. US plated cars seemed to be among the worst offenders, too.

Then there are the tailgaters. Seriously, a Hyundai SUV was doing around 120-130, about a car length behind a pick-up truck. The SUV driver couldn’t possibly see anything except the rear of the truck, and if the truck driver had slowed for any reason, the SUV driver wouldn’t have time to even reach the brake pedal before hitting the truck, let alone use it. That scene was played out by countless other vehicles just this morning, on a relatively quiet Sunday.

There were also the lane weavers, attempting to make up some ground, weaving from lane to lane, always at speeds well in excess of the limit. Again, one slight mistake from another driver and they simply would have nowhere to go. It’s craziness.