Closures

I had great fun getting home on Friday. It was a lovely warm day, I tailed off badly during the afternoon so thought I would head home nice and early to catch some sun and maybe a beer or two.

Things started out really well, and I sailed through the first mile of the journey. Normally this bit is a pretty hectic and the first 1.1 miles can take up to 20 minutes, but Friday only took about 5 minutes. The smell of beer was closing in! But as soon as I hit the tunnel before Kensington the cars were already queuing. Sometimes this happens as there is a bit of a bottleneck by Harrods. But it wasn't clearing.

I spent the next hour trying to fight my way through the traffic which is particularly difficult on that stretch as the road is too narrow to filter, and the central reservation is concrete curbing and fenced most of the way. Cars everywhere, bikes everywhere, sun scorching down, engine overheating, tempers worsening, driving deteriorating. It was a real nightmare.

Eventually, after some inventive riding I made it to the turn off by Hammersmith Flyover, only to find that the hold up was because the police had shut it. I've never been home any other way that that before, so I had to find an alternative route through Hammersmith. I used the logic that if the sun was in my eyes, I would be going in the correct direction. Luckilly I managed to get back on the A4 the other side of the flyover. How I don't know but at least I ended up back on the right road. Very hot, tired and frustrated. Thankfully the closure had made the traffic thin on the other side of it, so the rest of the journey was a pleasure.

The trouble with London, as soon as there is an accident, traffic light out of order or whatever, it's a nightmare getting through. I really feel sorry for the cars that get stuck. It took me 45 minutes extra to get through the carnage, but I can't imagine how long it would have taken the cars. I've noticed that as soon as there is an accident, the police tend to shut down the entire road. Whereas before they would shut down the lane and try and filter the traffic through, now they just block access. As mentioned before, I really need to find different routes as I really don't want to have to do that again.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, I got blocked in by a car for about 10 minutes who was playing that 'Woo hoo, woo hoo woo hoo hoo. Woo hoo ad nauseam' song at full belt. Guess what I was singing all the way home? And then the icing on the cake, my drinking buddy cancelled (after 2 hours of waiting for him to call) so I didn't even get a beer in.