Driving Progress

Happily, the drives to and from Manchester this weekend were smooth and problem free, despite the weather being utterly fucking horrible both times. On the way up it was fairly wet, with some semi-heavy rain in parts, but it wasn’t too bad. On the way home, though, it was nothing short of torrential. In fact, it only really cleared up when I got to Cambridge.

Both journeys also involved small traffic jams caused by accidents in the foul weather, (I’m going to write a bit about that later on) and caused delays of about ten to fifteen minutes each time. But I managed both journeys in under four hours. Going up, that four hours was from Cambridge, because I’d chosen the wrong time to try and set off, so it took three quarters of an hour just to get out of the city (which normally takes about ten minutes), but then it was just a smooth journey.

The return leg was the full Manchester – Attleborough run, which TomTom reckoned would be 3hrs 50, and pretty much was – it was four hours dead once I’d stopped off and topped up the car at the end of the journey, which made for pretty good speed.

What did interest/please me, though, was my own endurance, and how I’ve got used to driving without really noticing it. Eighteen months ago, when I’d just passed the test, and we went up to Manchester, I could only manage two hours of driving before seriously needing to take a break. If I’d driven any longer than that, I would’ve been dangerous – that’s only happened once, where I’ve driven too far, and been utterly knackered by the end, to the point that once we did swap over, I just went to sleep in the car for an hour, which is something I do about once every five years.

This weekend, though, I was able to do a four hour stint without a break, and with no serious issues at all. OK, by the time I got home last night I was tired, and had a mental blank for about ten/fifteen minutes when I got in, but that was it, no really lingering effects at all. More importantly, my right foot – which, on that first long journey, ended up being cripplingly painful for the entire weekend- was absolutely fine, no pain at all, even when we then went out for a (roughly) four or five mile walk on the Saturday.

Really, I just find it interesting to see how much I’ve got used to driving – particularly since buying the Mondeo. I’m comfortable in it, which makes a lot of difference when it comes to these things, but also I just don’t find that type of drive stressful at all. Yeah, sure, the roads are full of tosspots (usually driving BMWs) but they don’t worry me at all. I kind of just take tosspotism into consideration.

In fact, I might actually be coming to like driving – which was something I really didn’t see happening, back when I passed. Progress indeed.