Next stop Rickmansworth.

Oh weary me....I am a traveller returned, my Jane and her delicious babies have gone home to Utah and I helped her on her way, ME....I drove her the whole way to the airport, near London...that big place where people aren't used to sharing roads with cows and sheep, where ancient farmers on antiquated tractors don't write the rules of the road, the ones that say that 'tidden no need for rushin', "better to get there 30 minutes late in this life than 30 years early into next one my lover." Up there in that fast paced world, well- they want to get there yesterday and so they have big old roads with fast important looking shiny cars without bits of hedgerow in the wing mirrors.
The original plan was that I merely accompany Julie as she drove the American bound family to the airport so she would have company on the journey home....oooh, a road trip, fun. Julie is completely unafraid of unfamiliar roads and fast moving traffic, getting lost doesn't happen to Julie, me though..well I have been known to drive through Wales ( which is a whole other country the welsh will tell you, in my attempts to get just 3 counties up in THIS country..Devon, somerset, Wiltshire, in a straight line on a map.....Wales is right over there on the left but that won't stop ME enjoying it's beauty.Thankyou!!) However, Julie's husband was violently sick all night and so at 3.15am I found myself driver and navigator and rather cunningly woke Jordan to come with me ( he had a day off ahead of him) he was dressed and in the car before he was awake enough to understand what he had agreed to, HA!! teenagers are gullible creatures when you catch them at the right moment.
So, 4 adults, 2 babies and more bags than I reckoned on, still plenty of room in my lovely old bone shaking mini-van, between us we thought we could gather the funds for this trip....nearly 500 miles in a gas guzzling tank of a vehicle, much loved but feared and spoken to with respect and pleas for good behaviour and safe travels. Petrol is £.89 a LITRE, thats roughly ( very roughly- I'm as good at maths as I am at reading maps or finding airports,) between $7 and $8 a gallon, gold juice my friends. The coach was fully booked and the train is daylight robbery and expected them to change not once but twice, with babies and bags....no siree , my carriage awaits and was still shiny in between the scratches and rust spots following a pre funeral visit to the only hot wash in town.
We had room a plenty for passengers and snacks and off we went.
I stunned myself. I did it...... our destination was a mere 32 miles away with signposts showing me the way so clearly I actually KNEW I would get there, first try. That was until Jane said
" It's no good, I need a pooh"
" Nearly there" said I.
" nope, it won't wait, NOW, please stop somewhere NOW"
Now, as a rule, I would tell her to practice her pelvic floor exercises, thank the powers that be that we are so close to getting where we intended even though I am driving and just grit her teeth, but we are in a car without the wife of a man who has been vomiting for England all night, the very man whose house Jane and family have been sleeping in for 2 weeks. Did I mention also that dearest Izzie, aged 2 1/2 has been puking in the back seat the whole way up? When the mother of a puking child who has been staying in the home of a puking adult says her bowels feel unsteady and should be allowed to do what they are screaming to do, it's best not to argue and off the motorway we came.
Why is it that these things tend always to happen when you are nowhere near a toilet and it's so early that ( remember we are in England) nothing is open. NOTHING. Also, my family tend to find such horrible humour in the discomfort of another human being in such situations. Imagine hearing Jane's plaintive pleas, begging now for even a relatively high hedge to squat behind and Jordan replying " hmmm, 5 miles to Staines.... Jane might get there quicker than us" Just in the nick of time we found a corner shop open and Jane was told she was welcome to use their facilities, she came out looking considerably more comfortable than when she went in, even though she told us in great detail that a hedge would have been preferable and infinitely more sanitary.
All is well, except that unlike Hanzel and Gretel no-one had thought to throw bread trails out of the window and for some unknown reason the highway people omitted to put up a single sign for the M25 or Gatwick airport. Bugger.
I did it though, we made it, in plenty of time and 2 babies, 2 adults ( dosed up with every kind of anti pooh / puke medicine and some soothing just feel better medicine for good luck) and a ton of bags were checked in and sent on their way.
I have no logical reason for feeling this way, but it is true to say that I am never worried about getting HOME from somewhere. I always have the utmost faith in the fact that I will simply get in my car and it will somehow remember how we got to wherever we have been and simply point itself in that direction and take me home. Not on the M25 however.
Why, I ask you, can there not be simple, easy to follow directions to the very end of this country? I wanted to get to the bottom bit of the 'boot' the SOUTHWEST. How hard would that be to just have signposts that say "the SOUTHWEST" Suddenly I find myself and my well behaved but thristy car, having already guzzled its way through £60 of petrol , on a fast moving motorway with a choice of going to London, London and Reading or...... I forget where but I knew I didn't want to go there.
I want the southwest, I don't want to go INTO London, no-one in their right minds wants to go INTO London....I am pretty sure we didn't go anywhere near Reading on the way up so why would we go there on the way home?!?
So we went to Rickmansworth.
Dear life...... how does this always happen to me? Bloody Rickmansworth, I know you've probably never heard of it and I have only heard of it because my uncle lived there once when I was about 5, of course he doesn't live there now or it would have been a happy mistake and we could have dropped in for a drink and a nervous breakdown.
Jordan thought that this might be just the perfect moment to find the roadmap, look up Rickmansworth and say " We are SO far out of our way you know" The marvellous thing about driving an automatic car as opposed to a manual, is that there is almost always a free hand available to punch someone should the need arise.
The need arose.
He then rather cleverly looked at the map and said that Reading was indeed on the way home to the southwest, no need to drive through it but head in the general direction and we were on the right road. Halle-blinking-lujah.
We are home, our ears can still hear the rattling of the loose bits in my dear car that got us where we needed, where we didn't need ( or want) and home again.
It cost £110 in petrol. My bed is beckoning and I am on my way. I hope my Jane and her family have had a good trip and can enjoy the bliss of their own beds very soon too. Such a sad reason for this visit but the joy those 2 babies brought with them was priceless.