Calm end for an eventful day for me

Nature always comes up trumps and none so much as at the end of the day when the setting sun can create such ephemeral beauty as this. I sometimes wonder how many spectacular sunsets have passed unseen by mankind over the history of the earth let alone during the time we've been around.

I was up in Enfield today learning more about iPads in schools with friend and colleague Stuart who is a real expert in the subject and a great trainer. I'm becoming more comfortable with the apps now and can see the impact on teaching and learning that these devices can have and also gaining a greater understanding of the implications of managing them in the classrom and in the school.

But that is not the reason for the title. It's because the journey to Enfield and to some extent the journey back was awful and reminded me of what it was like, at its worst, in the 11 years I travelled up to London before retiring. If I'm going anywhere in London other than Greenwich I usually park up at Mottingham station on the A20 and travel in using a travelcard on the railway and underground.

Mistake No. 1 was not listening to the traffic reports before leaving. Mistake No. 2 was not turning around at the first opportunity, coming home and writing off the day.

The M26 had been closed since 5.00am owing to a lorry fire and all traffic that uses that motorway to get to the M25 was being diverted along the M20 to its junction with the M25. The only problem is that the M20/M25 junction is traffic light controlled, letting just a few cars through at a time. So there was a jam of over 13 miles along the M20 caused by the lights at this junction.

A similar thing happened in April 2012 when we were on our way to Heathrow to catch a flight to San Diego, the M26 was shut and all traffic diverted via M20 to the M25, so once in the jam I knew what to expect. Fortunately we'd left plenty of time to get to the airport, so it wasn't a problem.

So a journey to Enfield which should have taken 2 hours ended up taking over 4 and I arrived just in time for lunch. Even the journey back was not smooth as the train from London Bridge was delayed at Lee while a fault was fixed. I arrived back home somewhat relieved that I did not have to do the same again tomorrow.

So it was lovely to come home to supper, a spectacular sunset and a relexing walk through Mote Park in the gathering dusk of a warm early September evening.