Before going back to work, I was running over a few things in my head – and was worried that I had forgotten stuff!
Once I was in the car, it was like I’d never been out of it! The only fly in the ointment was the bloody roadworks. Nottingham City Council, for example, decided to wait until Monday (the first day back for virtually the entire country) to close lanes on several City Centre routes to install cameras. I mean, they’ve had nine f***ing months, and they waited until Monday.
Today, I had a lesson in Hucknall, followed by one in Clifton. I’d left an hour between for travelling time. Going out, I timed the journey (the long route, via Wollaton and Bulwell, and it took just over 30 minutes). Coming back towards Clifton I decided to risk the Ring Road, reasoning that traffic isn’t as heavy right now and it would probably be free flowing. I had to detour at the start because of queuing traffic on Hucknall Road near that new Aldi. Once on the Ring Road, everything was fine until I got to the Aspley junction to the M1. Traffic was at a standstill.
It turns out that there are roadworks there, and you can’t turn right. I was particularly impressed by the ‘advanced warning’ sign that announced this, and which was still on show – how the f*** would I have seen that during lockdown? So I was stuck in the queue. It was made worse by the fact that three twats had had an RTA at Beechdale, so it was down to one lane there. But it was also down to one lane up to it, because the f***ing twats at the council had decided that today would be a good day to cut the suckers off all the trees that line that route. I mean, they could have cut them off last week when it was quiet (or even during winter, when it’s best to do it anyway), but Nottingham doesn’t work like that – everything has to be half-assed and inconvenient. And now I think about it, the lane closure probably had something to do with that RTA in the first place. It took an hour and ten minutes.
I should have gone back the long way. In normal times, I rarely take the shortest route because it is often the longest in terms of time. The rat runs are always best, and that was the only thing I’d forgotten.