Some Random Thoughts

Having been away for about a third of my trip, I feel that I should include you, the reader, in some thoughts I have had.

• English car parks are designed for the size of small, compact European cars. Then they take away about 4 inches either side and paint lines. The result is that a slim, healthy chap like me cannot get out of any car in a car park without taking a chunk out of the nearest object be it a car, post, wall or all three
• Photo periodicity is alive and well in the UK. Having arrived from Australia during our autumn (shorter day length, no daylight saving) with the sun rising just before 7 am, I am confronted with effective daylight here now from 4.30 am (really 3.30 am) until almost 9 pm. The evening is just great, but how do you go back to sleep at 5 am when your eyes tell you that it is 7am?
• Drivers here are polite to the point of self-defeat. People wave you ahead of them out of right-turn lanes, when resuming the roadway after parking and sometimes ahead of you at roundabouts. You can feel the urge to charge ahead fall away after a few days on the road.
• Motorways here are a new challenge. I drove to Newport in Shropshire yesterday past the main roads for Birmingham, and there were sometimes 4 lanes of traffic heading in the same direction. No horn honking, no rude fingers, and big roadside services with 4 or 5 food and drink outlets all served with free wi-fi connection. Coffee is a little ordinary, but the connectivity is fine.
• Single lane, hedged country lanes are for the locals. I am in a state of absolute concern bordering on panic (here are the bricks again) when I realise that I'm the first car in a line. It is better to follow someone than lead apparently (sounds like Salsa dancing again).
• To get your Navman into a spin, drive across a car ferry. It happened in Fowey in Cornwall the other day, and the machine could not get any sense of where it was. I turned down the 'Do a U-turn whenever possible' noise after a while.
• Cask ales taste significantly better when the ambient temperature is below 20 degrees C. It takes a game drinker to approach one when the mercury rises above 25
• Losing a Twenty-20 world cup final match can be easily offset by an Australian winning a Formula One race in Europe. You get to keep an Australian winning the World Snooker championship up your sleeve to trump something else with later on.
• The English agricultural concept of 'Sustainable Practices' is significantly different from my concept, but I'm not sure yet who is corrrect or otherwise