The Return Drive

Well, the return drive from Bracknell to Cambridge went OK in the end.

It didn’t start off well, as at 6 in the morning I couldn’t start the fucking car, and ended up having to call out the breakdown people. Turned out that the steering lock had engaged, and locked the key barrel of the ignition too, although it only took the AA man a few minutes of wiggling the wheel and swearing before it all worked. Fucking thing.

Finally left Bracknell at around 6:45, and got in to Cambridge for about 9, 9:15 – so not too bad at all, considering the M4 and M25 were starting to get busy. If I’d started off much later, I think the entire thing would’ve been a nightmare.

Would I do it again? No, probably not. It was more expensive than the train, more hassle (bizarrely) and saved me about 20 minutes all told. So no, not really worth doing. But it’s the first time I’ve been able to rent a car since passing the test, and it answered a lot of questions for me, so in that context the entire thing was a success. It means I know now that if I need to, I can rent a car easily – and in the next month or so it’s likely that I’ll need to do so at least once in order to go and check out rental places in Norfolk (far easier to do from Cambridge than from Bracknell) and so on, so yeah, it’s good to know that I can do it with no problems.

Mind you, I’m fucking knackered now…