A Slow Start - Fat Dogs and French Estates - page 36

towards the Folkestone Eurotunnel terminal, a mere 152 miles due south. As co-driver I
popped my beanbag cushion behind my head, drew up my fleece blanket and almost im-
mediately slipped into a gentle snooze. Not ten minutes later my blissful state of napping
was shattered by a roar from my right.
“I don't bloody believe it. It's not even four in the morning and there's a gigantic tail-
back.”
With Jack being prone to slight exaggeration, I concluded, behind tightly closed lids,
that this probably amounted to three cars but no... What a complete nightmare! He was
right. Having reluctantly opened my eyes I could plainly see that all three lanes of the mo-
torway were choc-a-bloc with traffic, mainly lorries doing their night runs. This was Wat-
ford Gap, our starting point on the M1 and usually not congested for at least another 35
miles. But since the advent of the M1 widening project, south of Luton, habitual users of
the motorway had seemingly moved to a nocturnal lifestyle. The usual daytime jamming
had evidently turned '24/7'.
We were inconveniently positioned between junctions, so well and truly stuck. For one
unsettling moment, as Jack's eyes took on the characteristic look of one who is about to
erupt, I thought he was going to reverse back up the hard shoulder. Fortunately we were in
the fast lane, so this would have been impossible.
Instead, he began uttering various sagacious pronouncements.
“So here's the bloody deal. They decide to use billions of taxpayer pounds and take
longer than the Second World War, widening the road. During this time the motorway is so
congested that it's virtually unusable.”
I was about to offer a consoling word or two in an attempt to curb his enthusiasm but
it was too late, he was now thoroughly warmed up and in full flow.
“In the meantime the fuel costs and delays are more than twice what they would have
been if they'd left the bloody road as it was. So we spend three hours to travel twenty miles.
Then, when the work is finished we save a few minutes on that stretch only to hit the same
tailback twenty miles closer to London. People complain that the government doesn't have
a transport strategy. Wrong ! They do. Close the bloody roads and force people out of their
cars so they can stand up for two hours on the train.”
“Yes, of course darling, quite right ”, I replied, adopting my most soothing personnel
tone.
Thank goodness for the thermos bags. More as an anger management tool than any-
thing else, I passed a mug of coffee and several doorstep-thick egg sandwiches over to Jack.
I then made a new mental note. As I observed several morsels of white and yellow flying
around the driving area I realised that mashing the egg had not been the most practical idea.
After what seemed like a lifetime we started moving, gently. I reluctantly had to con-
cede that Jack was absolutely right. When planning a long journey, or even a short one, if it
involves a British motorway, factor in 'disaster time' and add that to the overall scheduling.