It’s like driving in a plate of spaghetti

Long ago I did my first driving tour of Britain and I still remember at times raging in frustration at its impossible roading system. There were, from time to time, long silences between me and The Lady Driver. She once stopped in the middle of a roundabout in Chester, much to the chagrin of other motorists, and demanded “we don’t move until you make your bloody mind up”. And then you have to deal with the sort of situation in the picture. So what speed limit do you observe?  Who knows? “Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode, The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road. A reeling road, a rolling road that rambles round the shire, And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire; A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.” G.K.Chesterton’s poem is right on the mark. It is like trying to navigate in a plate of spaghetti. The result is lost time (big time!), lost experiences, frustration generally, not to mention those “quiet times”. The problem is that there are usually several ways of getting from one place to the other. Your GPS will get you there (most times – but not always), but it won’t pick the best way. I’ll give you the options. The fast way – that’s also the way Google Maps and/or a GPS will take you, so no advantage there. But I’ll also tell you about the pretty way, or the interesting way that takes in the best of sights to be seen,  and I’ll also give you options for side trips to all sorts of places that might interest you. Here’s the bad news . . . […]