Journey Ever Homeward...
Drunken night out on Friday ensured I woke up with a headache on Saturday, not remembering much about Friday, but with the vague recollection that A) It had been a good night, and B) I had been very, very, very drunk.
This last fact was confirmed when I looked over the side of my bed to discover vomit in my bin...first thing was first, headache or no headache, that bin had to go! It also had to be washed!! Eugh!
In hindsight it was probably just as well I was sick, thankyou once again to Tariq putting up with me, and letting me in the house in the first place, apparently I was struggling with the door, gave up all hope and just sat outside when he heard me. I was quite content to sit there all night.
Being sick at least meant I didn't really have much of a hangover.
After talking to Dad on the phone and him giving me a rough estimation of when he would be up to pick me up, I had to get googling (and packing) for he had given me the task of trying to find some comet warehouse near Walsall that one of my tutors had mentioned to me the other day in the kitchen at uni. I spent ages looking, couldn't find it, and resorted to phoning my tutor, at home, on a saturday morning, apologising profoundly to her. She didn't give a toss, she said it got her out of hoovering. Not only was she not able to give me the name of this place, she could not give me the road either, she could however give me complicated instructions (which included: speed camera behind tree) on how to get there. I settled for this and warned her we may well be ringing her later.
Dad arrived at 3pm, and miraculously I was packed, still feeling a little dodgy, but not too bad. So we set off for Willenhall...my directions getting us to J3 of M5 were fantastic, where it fell down was when we got off the M6 and started following my tutor's directions! Elaborate was not the word. Eventually, several wrong turning's later, and one stop to ask a man who was gardening, we decided we were approaching it from the wrong angle, we did finally get there...only after I'd tried to lead dad down a pedestrianised street (bear in mind we are in large, yellow, transit van) and into what was possibly the worlds smallest carpark, where we had to turn around, without mowing down 3 pedestrians, one child and a buggy!
On arrival we discovered their range of 'seconds' cookers was very limited and not very discounted! We left 4 minutes after arriving. I felt bad and just directed dad back to the M6 and M5.
We headed south.
Going along nicely, with stilted conversation from me and my father, he suddenly looks at the dashboard and proclaims 'Oh, no. that bloody red light's come on again, I knew it would.'
This meaning all of nothing to me I asked him to explain. Apparently if you push the engine too much the light comes on to let you know that the Turbo engine has cut out, basically you can only do about 50mph if you're lucky.
We had to pull over he explained, Stop the engine, and restart it and it would be fine.
Luckily there was a junction coming up. We took it and turned onto a main duel carriageway and into a layby. The sign ahead announced the imminent village as 'Uckbridge'. The van was restarted with no sign of light and so I waved goodbye to Uckbridge and we turned around and headed back to the motorway. We went over a bridge, which should have rung bells in hindsight, as, not having passed over any rivers, there was only one major thing to be going over! It wasn't until we were in the lane for the slip road I saw the sign 'M5 NORTH'
"STOP, it's north, not south" I shouted
"What??? Too late, there are cars behind me." My dad said "How the hell did I miss the turning onto the south carriageway?? I don't know how I did that"
As we went onto the NORTH carriageway I looked back and incredulously exclaimed 'there isn't a slipway onto the south!!'
Trust us to pick the only junction where you can get off the south carriageway, but not rejoin, and you can rejoin the north carriageway, but not leave!!!
We had to travel back north to the next junction to turn around....
That wasn't too bad, it wasn't too far....only about 15 miles back in the opposite direction, after deliberately overtaking a lorry, the engine cut out again...so we pulled in front of the pissed off looking lorry driver and went from 70mph to 40 mph!! Worse still, we were going uphill!!! The lorry driver promptly overtook us again! Slowly getting to the top of the hill, where we were passed by a caravan (insult of all insults), we pulled onto the hard shoulder. Engine off, engine on...off we go...2 minutes later...hard shoulder. Engine off...engine on....
Fortunately it held then until we got off the M4! Approaching the Almondsbury interchange in bristol, we were greeted with a sign saying 'Junction 18 of M4 closed'
"What?! Closed! But how are we going to get off and go home!" said my dad. I reassured him there would be more signs...but there weren't and fortunately it wasn't closed either. However the engine did cut out again!
We finally got home at something nearing half 6! To be greeted by my sister and all her cronies holding a pizza party...who left promptly when we arrived. She had thoughtfully left us a message on the side that said 'Gone over the park' Dad and I got cases upstairs and went straight back out to Sainsbury's.
Meanwhile my mum arrived home...to an empty house. Which she thought was odd because I'd text her when we got off the motorway, so we should have been home. Then she saw my coat on the stairs, realised we had been home, and saw the note my sister left, came to the bizarre conclusion that me and my dad were also over the park and was about to text us when we arrived home for the second time!
The other thing was, halfway down the motorway my dad exclaimed that my loving parents had not got my sister a birthday card, and we were supposed to get one...it's her birthday today! Fortunately, I had bought my mum a card that was suitable for Ruth instead and we decided that she could have that, and no one need ever know...mum asked about the card. When produced she said 'it's a bit swish isn't it?' both my dad and I muttered something and walked off....I couldn't keep it up this morning though and admitted it was meant for her, but after the hellish journey there was no way we could actually stop and get one! She didn't seem to mind.
So with all this having happened, like mike said: am I really willing to go all the way back on tues, and come back again weds?
Totally!
Like I explained to him...I'm going by train and it's not like trains can come off the tracks.....he told me to stop right there before I jiinxed myself!
xx
This last fact was confirmed when I looked over the side of my bed to discover vomit in my bin...first thing was first, headache or no headache, that bin had to go! It also had to be washed!! Eugh!
In hindsight it was probably just as well I was sick, thankyou once again to Tariq putting up with me, and letting me in the house in the first place, apparently I was struggling with the door, gave up all hope and just sat outside when he heard me. I was quite content to sit there all night.
Being sick at least meant I didn't really have much of a hangover.
After talking to Dad on the phone and him giving me a rough estimation of when he would be up to pick me up, I had to get googling (and packing) for he had given me the task of trying to find some comet warehouse near Walsall that one of my tutors had mentioned to me the other day in the kitchen at uni. I spent ages looking, couldn't find it, and resorted to phoning my tutor, at home, on a saturday morning, apologising profoundly to her. She didn't give a toss, she said it got her out of hoovering. Not only was she not able to give me the name of this place, she could not give me the road either, she could however give me complicated instructions (which included: speed camera behind tree) on how to get there. I settled for this and warned her we may well be ringing her later.
Dad arrived at 3pm, and miraculously I was packed, still feeling a little dodgy, but not too bad. So we set off for Willenhall...my directions getting us to J3 of M5 were fantastic, where it fell down was when we got off the M6 and started following my tutor's directions! Elaborate was not the word. Eventually, several wrong turning's later, and one stop to ask a man who was gardening, we decided we were approaching it from the wrong angle, we did finally get there...only after I'd tried to lead dad down a pedestrianised street (bear in mind we are in large, yellow, transit van) and into what was possibly the worlds smallest carpark, where we had to turn around, without mowing down 3 pedestrians, one child and a buggy!
On arrival we discovered their range of 'seconds' cookers was very limited and not very discounted! We left 4 minutes after arriving. I felt bad and just directed dad back to the M6 and M5.
We headed south.
Going along nicely, with stilted conversation from me and my father, he suddenly looks at the dashboard and proclaims 'Oh, no. that bloody red light's come on again, I knew it would.'
This meaning all of nothing to me I asked him to explain. Apparently if you push the engine too much the light comes on to let you know that the Turbo engine has cut out, basically you can only do about 50mph if you're lucky.
We had to pull over he explained, Stop the engine, and restart it and it would be fine.
Luckily there was a junction coming up. We took it and turned onto a main duel carriageway and into a layby. The sign ahead announced the imminent village as 'Uckbridge'. The van was restarted with no sign of light and so I waved goodbye to Uckbridge and we turned around and headed back to the motorway. We went over a bridge, which should have rung bells in hindsight, as, not having passed over any rivers, there was only one major thing to be going over! It wasn't until we were in the lane for the slip road I saw the sign 'M5 NORTH'
"STOP, it's north, not south" I shouted
"What??? Too late, there are cars behind me." My dad said "How the hell did I miss the turning onto the south carriageway?? I don't know how I did that"
As we went onto the NORTH carriageway I looked back and incredulously exclaimed 'there isn't a slipway onto the south!!'
Trust us to pick the only junction where you can get off the south carriageway, but not rejoin, and you can rejoin the north carriageway, but not leave!!!
We had to travel back north to the next junction to turn around....
That wasn't too bad, it wasn't too far....only about 15 miles back in the opposite direction, after deliberately overtaking a lorry, the engine cut out again...so we pulled in front of the pissed off looking lorry driver and went from 70mph to 40 mph!! Worse still, we were going uphill!!! The lorry driver promptly overtook us again! Slowly getting to the top of the hill, where we were passed by a caravan (insult of all insults), we pulled onto the hard shoulder. Engine off, engine on...off we go...2 minutes later...hard shoulder. Engine off...engine on....
Fortunately it held then until we got off the M4! Approaching the Almondsbury interchange in bristol, we were greeted with a sign saying 'Junction 18 of M4 closed'
"What?! Closed! But how are we going to get off and go home!" said my dad. I reassured him there would be more signs...but there weren't and fortunately it wasn't closed either. However the engine did cut out again!
We finally got home at something nearing half 6! To be greeted by my sister and all her cronies holding a pizza party...who left promptly when we arrived. She had thoughtfully left us a message on the side that said 'Gone over the park' Dad and I got cases upstairs and went straight back out to Sainsbury's.
Meanwhile my mum arrived home...to an empty house. Which she thought was odd because I'd text her when we got off the motorway, so we should have been home. Then she saw my coat on the stairs, realised we had been home, and saw the note my sister left, came to the bizarre conclusion that me and my dad were also over the park and was about to text us when we arrived home for the second time!
The other thing was, halfway down the motorway my dad exclaimed that my loving parents had not got my sister a birthday card, and we were supposed to get one...it's her birthday today! Fortunately, I had bought my mum a card that was suitable for Ruth instead and we decided that she could have that, and no one need ever know...mum asked about the card. When produced she said 'it's a bit swish isn't it?' both my dad and I muttered something and walked off....I couldn't keep it up this morning though and admitted it was meant for her, but after the hellish journey there was no way we could actually stop and get one! She didn't seem to mind.
So with all this having happened, like mike said: am I really willing to go all the way back on tues, and come back again weds?
Totally!
Like I explained to him...I'm going by train and it's not like trains can come off the tracks.....he told me to stop right there before I jiinxed myself!
xx
posted by Culinali at 8:05 pm
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