Grumpy Travelling

We had to travel from Skegness to Southwell and back on Tuesday for my job, I say we because I can't drive - this will be moaned about further in another blog - so my chauffeur took me.

This is partly the story of how a mild-mannered, generally sweet tempered man turns into a swearing, hand gesturing monster as soon as he gets behind the steering wheel. The rest of it is how bloody annoying I find most other road users.

On our way I counted 7 drivers using their mobile phone, the worst by far was a huge articulated lorry with left-hand drive, don't these foreign drivers cause enough carnage on our roads with their blind-spots without compounding their difficulties by being distracted by a phone?
Isn't it a pity we can't report them, I'd enjoy travelling much more if I could sit with pen and paper writing down the registration numbers of all the drivers that annoy me [I'd need a really big notebook].

My chauffeur obeys all the speed limits, this is very frustrating as well as positively dangerous as some t**t invariably wants to go faster, so is either - as my aforementioned sweet tempered man puts it - "up our a**e" or they overtake us, not always when it's safe to do so. This is when the swearing and hand gestures begin. The trouble is, I've started joining in and it's not very seemly for a lady of my quite advanced years. Hmm, you should hear us when we're on a 'Crumbly Day Out' with our friends. Another blog in the making I think.

Do women that have recently given birth also have a 'brain-bypass'??
An unbelievable number of young, obviously caring and doting mothers seem to think that they and their offspring are invincible. Why do they park their cars then proceed to get baby out of the back seat on the road-side instead of pavement???
They don't even look if anything is coming, just open the door, reach in for baby and assume you must have seen them so you'll either stop or go around them to hit an oncoming car. They are oblivious to their surroundings! [oh heck, this sentence sounds familiar]. Fortunately for these young women, they tend to be in towns or villages so [theoretically] passing cars should be going slow.

Anyway we arrived at Southwell, did what I had to do then decided to see the sights ...

Three minutes later we had a cup of tea having seen all of Southwell apart from the Minster and Workhouse.


I took a couple of photo's of the Minster then went in, it's well worth a visit. We've passed many a time and threatened to visit but not done so before, I'm glad we finally did and hope to go again. Next time we go to Southwell we plan to visit the Workhouse.

On our way back to Skegness, the air was still blue and the hand gestures continued as before.
At one point as we were turning right my window was wound down with the chauffeurs button and he bellowed in my ear "tell him to p**s off". This was to someone going straight on who moments before had 'been up our a**e'. I think my eardrum was possibly perforated.

A bit further on it was lovely and peaceful, no cars, just the open road and fields on either side when I noticed out of the corner of my eye, yet another hand gesture.
"What?" I said.
"What?" he replied.
This 'what' conversation went on a little while longer, just until I could see that I'd have to crack first.

"What was that last gesture for? There's no-one else about" I asked.

"I was just waving to a scarecrow" ...