Fake News (not!)
You know those occasional days when – with every last detail of your carefully-constructed schedule double-checked and for just once in your life, against all expectations, you seem to be ‘ahead of the game’ as you set off … and then something happens which no amount of D-D-Day Landings foresight or contingency could have anticipated and after that everything seems to conspire against you?
Chalk one up for me against the date 9th December 2019.
At the moment for family reasons I spend approximately half my week on the south coast.
As a result I have to try and cram my ‘real’ life commitments into the other half, which is not always easy, especially when on any given day for reasons beyond my control I find I need to be at the coast and thus plans keep changing and time for relaxing and/or thinking is reduced.
I’m not complaining – it’s all part of life, of course – but it’s a situation not without its complications.
As events unfolded last week I realised I was going to be required in the country until at least this coming Wednesday and so altered my various London commitments and arrived here on Saturday. To achieve this I had cancelled everything planned in London for this week bar one – a medical appointment set for noon yesterday.
The plan to ‘keep’ it was straightforward – I would borrow a car and undertake a round-trip to London for the purpose.
Accordingly yesterday, all preparations for the excursion planned, I set off at 7.45am having already completed my ablutions, collected the morning papers, filled the car up with petrol and had a spot of breakfast – leaving the rest of the household barely have opened their eyes.
The first twenty minutes of my journey passed without incident.
I drove to the A27 at Chichester at an easy, even pace, listening to the radio, quietly satisfied that everything was as it should be, contemplating nothing more than steady progress albeit anticipating a potential degree of inevitable traffic congestion when circumnavigating part the M25 in the rush hour.
Shortly afterwards Fate joined the party.
About two miles out of Chichester going westwards I joined the back of a traffic queue involving both lanes. I thought nothing of it – this sort of thing could happen anywhere at anytime … you know the sort of thing, a car attempting to change lanes and/or turn off eventually does so and after a minute or two’s pause on we drivers go.
It didn’t happen.
After continuing to listen to the radio, thinking about nothing in particular … and eventually about that so-far-unstarted classic novel I was going to write, I began to get bored. We still hadn’t moved.
First a quarter of an hour went by … and nothing. Then we inched forward another four cars’ length and stopped again.
And remained stock still for another ten minutes before repeating the process.
And again. And again. At one stage I remained stationary for over half an hour.
All the while, coming eastwards on the other side of the carriageway, my fellow drivers and I could watch several thousand cars progressing contentedly eastwards at 50 to 70mph on their way to work or whatever else they were doing.
My smartphone pinged. As I hasn’t moved since God knows when, I read the text and responded to it, indicating I was stuck in a jam.
Dear reader – I shall spare you any further unhappy details.
Suffice it to record that eventually – at the point where it became impossible for me to get there on time – I had to call the household I had left behind and ask for my medical appointment to be cancelled because of circumstances beyond my control.
Mission aborted, I still had to continue my ordeal until I could reach the nearest available turn-off … effectively do a U-turn … and return eastwards back towards Chichester along the A27 and thence to where I am staying.
I’d like to record here that yesterday’s early morning round trip (total distance 28 miles) took me precisely 2 hours and 50 minutes.
That’s another 2 hours 50 minutes of my life that I shall never get back …
See here for a link to what caused the cancellation of my trip, courtesy of the website of – SPIRIT FM
