Road Trip ....

So its Easter weekend and I thought a good time to go and get mom and bring her down to visit for a week or so.
My wonderful dad passed away last October from the Big C - I can't talk about its too soon maybe given time but not for now.
Any how, mom is now living with just the one male in her life, Leo the dog so on Thursday evening I made the trip(which should have taken about 3 hours but actually took 5 hours) to go fetch them.

The motorway was full of travelling canoes, bikes, caravans and cars literally stuffed full of children, duvets and various other things obviously required for an Easter week away in the lakes which is A) where mom resides and B) where every single person in the UK appeared to be going via the M6 on Thursday afternoon.

Now, I drive everyday for work, (sales) and so the motorway is my second home, but it never fails to amaze me the amount of people that get on the motorway and leave their driving skills and brain cells behind on the slip road.
I had to suffer middle lane hoggers, brake happy burks and my personal favourite, I'm not a policeman but I think I'll act like one because I don't like the way you are driving people....the list is endless and they were all out in force on Thursday.

I was planning on getting to mom's at a reasonable time to eat but the M6 had other plans and so I found myself having to stop at the services to grab a Costa - other coffee is available, and a sandwich / salad - this was determined by the quick calorie count I made whilst admiring all the things I couldn't eat.
It was at this point I encountered my next most annoying thing in life - a female scout !

Now I'm all for female solidarity and all girls together - women empowering women , etc. ....Nothing annoys me more than a woman diss'ing another woman just because they can, but female scouts I just don't get.
Now this may be because I'm a guide leader I just don't know, but there is  perfectly good organisation for girls/women to join its called GIRL guides because the other option is BOY scouts which quite frankly as the cuprinol advert says it does exactly what it says on the tin !

Anyway rant aside I'll get back to this particular 'scout' who was technically not in the que at the Costa counter her male counterpart was, but she decided she was 'with' him and jumped in front of me - even though she ordered and paid separately to him. I stood in line said nothing waiting my turn. And for anyone that knows me knows that in itself was no mean feat !

She was one of those people that had something to say about everything, and wanted everyone to hear it if they wanted to or not, she had the obligatory scout top on stating her name on the back and some camp somewhere she had been on and a necker of some sort, attire that she seemed to think was exclusive to her and no one in the history of the world anywhere owned any items remotely like this .... in a later blog I will reveal in all its glory my collection of said aforementioned items - although guides attire and not smelly BOY scout ones.

Anyway said 'scout' proceed to tell the whole of Costa and most of Scotland, whom I'm pretty sure could also hear her, all about her gluten allergy and how she needed to be soooo careful about what she ate or her tummy would never forgive her and blah blah blah ..... the whole time she's looking up and checking that she has a captive audience holding the whole que up .... I for one was only listening because A it was hard not to and I'm partly deaf and B  because we were all wondering what the hell it had to do with the coffee she had just ordered and would you please shut the *@#$ up and MOVE before I started preaching to the world about my allergy to her !

She did eventually move along although she did forget to take her chocolate brownie with her and the barrista had to go after her to take it .... I'm pretty sure there was gluten in that brownie - in fact I'm praying there was gluten in it and it kept her up all bloody night !

Anyway that aside coffee and salad was bought and aside from the incident with the lost fork in the car (once back on the road) and the having to eat my salad with my fingers I arrived at mom's in one piece.

After an overnight stay we made the return journey back down the M6 which mercifully was pretty uneventful and so mom and Leo have come to stay...

I shall keep you all updated as it what we get up to this week as there is plenty planned so stay tuned for our mini adventures.

K
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