The A6 (excerpt)

I first heard about Banksy's 'Dismaland' via the Minx's Twitter feed. She was enthused and bowled over by the concept from the start, and positively enjoyed the crap online ticket purchasing system, which did, indeed, seem to be a nod to both the frustrations of ticket buying for Glastonbury and the incompetence of exhibitions such as the Kraftwerk concerts at Tate Modern. 

With characteristic doggedness, she managed to obtain a couple of tickets for the bank holiday Monday, which left only the logistics to be sorted out. One complication was the state of the tyres on her car, which had become apparent just before we headed to Whitby and lent an extra frisson to the downhill journey on the rough track to Swallow Barn. 

The obvious solution was for her to take my car, leaving me with the MinxMobile, which needed to be returned to its owner, this evening. I don't suppose it would have been particularly dangerous to take those worn out fellows for one last jaunt on the motorway - after all, I have sympathy with anyone who's balding - but the perceived risk did give me an excuse to drive down the A6 instead.

It's been a longstanding ambition of mine to drive the A6, end to end: I need to find the time and a suitable vehicle. This evening at least gave me the opportunity to follow it from just south of Burton in Kendal, all the way through to Chorley. 

I'm not sure what route the A6 originally took through Lancaster but these days the one way system gets in the way, albeit briefly. Just before I hit that, I had to take the bridge over the river Lune. It was, to be honest, a fairly dismal evening but as I reached the north side of the bridge, I saw the Williamson Memorial illuminated by the low sun setting over Morecambe Bay and stopped to take this photo.

In the end it took almost exactly twice as long to reach the Minx's house by A6 as opposed to M6 but I didn't mind; I've always been a fan of the path less traveled. Plus it gave me the opportunity to listen to the whole of Julian Cope's 'Peggy Suicide', an masterpiece which should be right up near the top of any list of the best albums ever recorded.