Angél’s Babble

Having set off for Liverpool at about 8.30am, we didn’t have time for breakfast, and my youngest son, who was coming with me to see his older brother, was getting hungry. So I promised him we’d stop after driving 90 minutes to get something to eat.

We pulled into the Motorway Services and ordered two cooked breakfasts and a pot of tea, I nearly fell over at the bill… a couple of pence short of £17!! It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if half of it hadn’t been cold. I couldn’t eat all mine, but my son finished it off for me (that child can eat for Britain and still not put weight on! One of the benefits of having ADHD I guess).

On the way home the next evening, (not having learnt my lesson) we stopped at another services, about halfway way home, to get something to eat, this time I had egg on toast (remembering the adverts suggesting you don’t eat a large meal when Motorway driving, as it can make you feel drowsy) and Dom had two sausages & chips, that along with a pot of tea cost just over £10!! When I peeked at the receipt I saw they charged £1.09 for a sausage! £1.09!!! You can buy a really good quality & fancy sausage for 37p in Tesco and this was just a basic normal sausage! it was 99p for a slice of toast, a whole loaf of bread costs less than that one slice of toast, and I’m talking Kingsmill or Hovis, which I bet that toast wasn’t made from! The egg was 99p too, half a dozen eggs can be bought for about 50p, so that’s one heck of a profit margin! The egg wasn’t even cooked nicely, the white was still ’snotty’ (euuuuuugh).

Of course the Motorway Services can charge what they like, as they have a captive audience, you can’t turn around and threaten to use the services up the road, because the next one can be miles away, and it will be just as expensive!

Motorway services have become the modern equivalent of highwaymen, the only difference is, they’re not outlaws!

I have to admit I was pretty nervous about the drive up to Liverpool, because the last time I was up there (Sept 2005) my car was written off when I was rear ended on the M6 and even now I still get twinges in my neck & shoulder thanks to the whiplash injury I suffered. This latest trip was the first serious motorway driving I’ve done since the accident, but I had to face it, I couldn’t expect my son to be the one to do all the travelling all the time if we wanted to see each other.Thankfully the drive went fine & without incident, although I was amazed at how stupid some drivers are, and the risky manoeuvres they take. I guess I’d never noticed it before because I wasn’t really paying as much attention to the other drivers when I was driving. I hated it when I had other drivers driving way too close behind me at such high speeds, and when it got too much for me I either pulled over into the slow lane or (if it was clear) pulled over into the fast lane & put my foot down until I’d managed to put a couple of other cars between me & the suicidal idiot(s).

Anyway, at least my nervousness of Motorways has been faced and dealt with, leaving me with just a healthy awareness and concern while driving on them. I’ve always said “my driving is fine, it’s the other idiots on the road I have to be worried about” whenever someone has said “Drive carefully” to me.

I think it’s crazy that when we learn to drive we’re not given lessons on Motorway driving. Ok, so learner drivers are not allowed on the Motorways here in the UK (I don’t know about other Countries), but a person can pass their driving test and immediately go and drive on the fastest roads in the Country! What on earth is the difference between the driver 5 minutes before their driving test and 5 minutes after? Have they suddenly gained the knowledge & experience to handle Motorways? Maybe the law should be changed, and new drivers should have to take two courses and tests… the first being for ‘normal’ driving, and once they’ve passed that test, they then have to take a course on how to drive on Motorways, followed by a test. I bet that would help cut down on the amount of deaths & serious injuries in accidents caused by dangerous driving at such high speeds.

It’s been a while since I’ve had time to add anything here, but I hadn’t realised just how long it has been! The time seems to fly by when you’re busy and/or having fun.I’ve been lucky I guess, as it’s been both hehehe.

Since I last posted in this blog, in my “spare” (that’s a laugh!) time I’ve been working on two commercial web sites, updating the web site for my local ADHD support group (add+up), working on add+up’s latest newsletter and getting it ready for printing (my role on add+up’s committee is web site editor & newsletter editor), been to visit my son in Liverpool for the weekend, which involves a 4 hour journey by car (including a stop to be ripped off at Motorway services - I think I’ll have a rant about that in another post hehehe) there and a 4 hour journey back home, a three hour visit to the hairdressers, and last night I went to a quiz night to raise funds for add+up.