Random Monday #3

So here we are again. Another Monday, another Random Monday post. By the way, Happy Labor Day for those of you celebrating it :-)

Today’s mind scrambler is:

When was the last time you drove “out of town”?

Now, I am going to have to interpret this question to stop my answer from being extremely mundane! As we live in a small town with just a few local shops and a couple of supermarkets, going out of town is a regular occurrence and a necessity on an almost daily basis. Strictly speaking, the last time I drove out of town was on Saturday when we went to get ourselves a KFC, which was a mistake in itself but that’s a whole other story!

Before that, we did, of course, go to London a week or so ago, but we travelled on the train and the question does specify driving. So, the last time that we actually drove somewhere else was a couple of days after our London trip. It was a Bank Holiday here, and we decided to go on an impromptu little drive around after visiting another fast-food outlet (maybe we should look at our eating habits!!). We ended up going through the northern part of Wiltshire and over the county border into Gloucestershire, and then on into Oxfordshire.

This led us into the Cotswolds, with its beautiful scenery and lovely golden coloured buildings. It is so picturesque around there. We didn’t have a camera with us on the day, but we will have to go on a photography mission one day soon so that you can all get to see how gorgeous that part of the country is. We drove through Lechlade, which was bustling with cars and people out enjoying the holiday, and on through Burford, before looping round back towards home past Cirencester and back into Wiltshire. It was a very nice change to do something a little different, and we saw some stunning panoramas in just that short time. As I say, we will have to take you all along with us the nest time that we head that way!

But, we never actually stopped anywhere on that drive, so I don’t know if I have even now really answered the question properly. Where did we last drive to that was outside of the surrounding area, that wasn’t for work purposes and where we actually stopped and got out of the car? I will admit that I am struggling to think of the answer here. Give me a minute....

Five minutes later....
Aha! It took a while but inspiration has finally struck!! The last time that I drove out of town, with a purpose, was to collect Dori from Gatwick airport after her visit back home to Georgia. Now that was back at the beginning of July, which says to me that we need to go on a few more trips out before the weather turns much colder – I won’t say wetter because that would just be silly :-)

So where have you driven to lately? I would be interested to find out. As always, leave me a comment and we will see if anyone has a more interesting answer than an airport!

Welcome Home

Dori is back home. Yay!

I drove up to Gatwick airport yesterday to collect her. As with the outward journey, it meant a ridiculously early start for me - before the birds had even begun to clear their throats! Gatwick is further away than Heathrow, about 40 or 50 miles more, and Dori’s plane was due to arrive at 7a.m., so it was a crack of dawn start to the day.

The weather here for the last week or so has been glorious. In fact I can’t remember such a long stretch of unbroken sunshine for a very long time. So, it was a pleasant ride up to the airport (if driving along the motorways here can ever be said to be pleasant!), with my iPod choosing the music as I went. The sun rose as an orange ball as I left home, but was very soon shining brightly as I sped along the motorway.

I arrived at Gatwick at nearly the exact time that Dori’s flight was due. We are both very used to that journey, having made it countless times when we were both flitting back and forth across the Atlantic before we got married. So I knew roughly how long it would take me, and I arrived at pretty much the time I anticipated. It was a little chaotic when I arrived at the terminal as they are currently making changes to the road layout there, and have moved the drop-off point to directly in front of the car park entrance. Cars were going in all directions! Anyway, I manoeuvred my way across one lane of cars, and slipped quickly into the car park, leaving the mayhem behind me.

Having parked up, I walked over to the terminal and began my wait for Dori. The plane landed just a couple of minutes later, and so I anticipated a further 45 minutes or so for her to deplane and go through immigration, baggage claim and customs. An hour and a half later I was getting a tad worried! Thankfully, Dori then appeared at the end of the corridor. Apparently it had taken forever to get through immigration because they only had 2 people working there trying to get 2 or 3 plane loads of people through! But all was well :-)

We said our hellos and then made our way back to the car, and onwards back to Wiltshire. Sometimes the journey back from Gatwick can seem like it is taking forever, and yesterday was one of those days. Having to travel around the M25 (the inspiration for Chris Rea’s “Road to Hell”) doesn’t help!! For those that don’t know, the M25 is a ring road that encircles London, and is always extremely busy; and sometimes, as yesterday, at a complete standstill. So, it took much longer to get back home than it had for me to get up to the airport.

But, get back we did, and Dori is now fast asleep upstairs as I write this, trying to catch up on her missed sleep, and recovering from the jetlag. She had a wonderful time back home in Georgia, and I am sure she will be blogging about it all for you very soon!

In other news, apparently the World Cup is still going on, but I forget who is doing well and who is doing so abysmally poorly!! :-/ Maybe I will remember before the next time!