Perspective

On Monday, Google gave me a route that turned off the A1 early, muttering something about roadworks or something. I made sure it ended at home, which it did, so I set off.

The matrix said the A1 was closed south of Grantham; Google had my back. I turned off where it told me to, taking me cross country. In the middle of nowhere, Google said it was rerouting. Had I missed a turn?

I turned round till I got the route back; I hadn’t missed a turn, but again Google said it was rerouting. I told Siri (using voice control) to get me home; he couldn’t reach the server. I had no idea where I was.

I stopped again and looked at my phone. Out of data. Just when I really needed it, too.

I opened my network provider’s app to add more, but it wouldn’t let me connect to their server over mobile data. My previous network had let me connect to their server in their app whether I had data or not. It makes sense to let you do that, otherwise how can you add more data when you’re in the middle of nowhere with no WiFi?

I set off again, making sure the sunset was on my right or slightly behind, turning back once or twice. Eventually, I got to a place with a garage.

‘I should’ve stopped there.’ They might have had road atlases.

A couple more villages later, and I found another garage. The lad behind the counter didn’t seem to understand road atlas or map book. Perhaps because such things are relics to Zoomers; perhaps because his native language wasn’t English.

Frustrated, I left, and drove on, turning back when I appeared to be going north, and taking the other fork. Any other time, that road would’ve been fun to drive on, but it was getting dark and I was lost.

At a T junction, I debated whether to go left or right. The leftwards sign mentioned places I didn’t know; the rightwards sign mentioned the A1 in brackets. I decided to head towards the A1, hope it was open this far down.

It wasn’t.

There was another garage, so I went in. Behind the counter was a middle-aged man who knew what road atlases were, and he knew where we were and how to get to the A47 at Peterborough. Once I got there, I’d be fine.

Turns out I should’ve turned left at the T junction, but I wouldn’t have known where to go after that. But now I did, thanks to that man.

Approaching Peterborough, there were signs to the A47; I followed them all until this big roundabout where the road wasn’t marked. I couldn’t stay on the roundabout forever, so I picked an exit that looked feasible.

After a moment, it didn’t seem feasible. I whirled round the next roundabout, and stopped at the services at the big roundabout. I saw a woman getting money out the cash machine, and I thought I’d ask her for help. I gave her a moment so she wouldn’t think I was trying to mug her.

After she gave me directions, I set off again, soon hitting the A47. The rest of the journey was uneventful.

Apparently, there’d been some horrific incident on the A1 involving two or three lorries, one of which lay across the entire width of the A1.

If my data hadn’t conked out, I’m sure I would’ve made it home at a reasonable time. As it was, it was well late when I got back. Mr Pandammonium had a cup of tea ready for me, with some food on the way. Just what I needed. He’s a star.

Today, my new friend from parkrun was going home. She was going to pass within an hour’s drive of me, so we arranged to meet at the most complicated service station ever.

We talked and talked and talked. Then we talked about leaving, but the sky had opened and all the rain ever had started falling diagonally. We talked and talked and talked some more.

Then we were getting chucked out, so we had to leave. It might seem weird that I’d drive for an hour to meet someone who can only give an estimate of what time they’ll arrive, but I’m glad I did.