Fuel

In order to save money I've been strictly sticking to the speed limits, no drifting a little bit over any more for me. And it has made a difference, my mileage has increased by about 5%. I've also noticed that the roads are a bit quieter than they were last year and there seems to be an increase in the number of people pottling along at 50 miles a hour, I don't know if this is really so or just a bit of observation basis by me. 5% improvement in the miles I get isn't really going to cut it though I just paid for my first £50 full tank of petrol today, (our car takes about 42 litres) this time last year I was paying about £37 each time I filled up. The car is pretty good for mpg it can do about 425 on a full tank, unfortunately I drive 460 miles a week to get to work and back. It's not good, not good at all.

Not Fun

It was not fun driving into work this morning.




Even after an hour and twenty odd minutes of the engine running the frost hadn't completely melted from the bonnet.

I Need A Car-Cam

I really must start trying to capture some of the images of my travels across the fens every day. There are some fascinating things out there, take tractors and other things that farmers drive for instance. Being a city slicker who knows her way round Waitrose I did know what tractors looked like. They looked like this.



I never expected the variety of vehicles that I've seen in the fields or trundling along the roads. And they look so strange, there are tractors with great arms that spread out like the gossamer wings of a dragonfly in the sun, ones that can only go at 25 mph they look like squat beetles on stilts. There are things that they tow behind the tractors that look like the extended innards of a washing machine with claws. There are great monstrous machines that look like a half transformed transformer (You know, the sort that magically transform from a big boxy vehicle with a very small cabin on top, extendable arms and chutes to another boxy vehicle with arms, chutes and very small cabin on top except this one walks on two legs) And then there are the combine harvesters - I know what they look like, after all I do listen to The Archers

picture taken by Robert Scarth

'Today's Crap Drivers

Are brought to you by the letters "Ford Focus" and the number "Knobend"'

It is a truth universally acknowledged that all BMW drivers are complete numpties, selfish drivers and a menace to society but I'm starting to think that, after these months of commuting back and forth, at least in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire this isn't completely true. If some one is gonna cut me up or attempt to overtake in the face of a thundering juggernaut it's like as not some wanker in a Ford. Manically cutting across other cars without fear or favour or the use of signals. These drivers laugh in the face of breaking distances and waft farts at the highway code and I hate every single one of them. They ruin trips and ultimately slow down the traffic, it will only be a matter of time before I witness a crash as one of these numpties misjudge their traffic dodging act and smash into something. Tossers every single one of them.

Another One Of Life's Ambitions Achieved.

We've just back from an extremely enjoyable weekend in the North-West, more on that tomorrow later today when I've recovered from the trip back. But I just want to mark for posterity that today yesterday I drove on my favourite motorway - the M62; over my favourite bit of the country - The Pennines. It was great!

Brain Like Mush

At the risk of being a driving bore; I'm having actual conversations about the routes I take to get to work for god's sake! In my defence I'm only answering questions I don't discuss this stuff willingly, what do you folks consider to be be good fuel economy? I'm getting about 43 mpg, that's a petrol engine but I don't know whether that is average or good.

I've getting fascinated with how many miles I can eke out of each full tank, partly because I'm mean and I don't want to spend any more than I have to and partly because there is a bit of me that feels guilty about adding to the atmospheric pollution and the better fuel economy I can get the less damage I add.

Becky always said that the commute between my old flat and Lynn gave her a chance to think up blog posts, think through the wording, and get the final article polished up in her brain before she got to the Lynn bypass. I'm finding the complete opposite, after driving to and from work my mind is a blank and any coherent thought I might have had has disappeared with the early evening mist.

Avoiding Being A Numpty. Or How To State The Bleeding Obvious.

I've been driving to and from work in Cambridgeshire and home in Norfolk for just under two weeks now. It's a route of many roundabouts and plentiful fields, the towns on the way are either bypassed or just skirted through so it should be a fairly quick route except for....

Tractors, lorries, caravans, coaches and buses. Now I don't mind those too much, well all except caravans they ARE the spawn of Beelzebub as we know, they all have restrictions on the speed that they can go on the open road. So they are not numpties well the caravan haulers probably are but they don't have the chance to be one with a caravan behind them.

No, the numpties are them others, the idiots who drive too fast and cut you up, who over take with lorries thundering towards them so that get a chill sweat and start to ready yourself for an emergency stop when the accident happens. Then there are the gibbers who seem to think that it's perfectly acceptable to bimble along at 45 miles per hour when the speed limit is 60 but speed up to go through towns at 50 miles per hour when the signs are saying 30. They really shouldn't be allowed out. They take the racing line when they could be outpaced by an asthmatic moped and worry me considerably, swing out wildly when a pedestrian is walking along the pavement and never ever use their indicators at any time during the journey.

I've also noticed as I wend my way back and forth that along each stretch of road there will be at least one numpty, the trick is to ensure that a) I'm far enough away from them and b) that I'm not the numpty.

Lost in Wisbech

So I drove into work today, from King's Lynn to finest Fenlandshire, apart from getting lost round Wisbech it was all fine. Wisbech is a fine looking town especially in the centre but its by-pass is not very well sign posted and I was looking for signs to March and or the A141 not the A644684648. I eventually found the road I was meant to be on, but only after going through a couple of very pretty villages and the snow strewn landscape.

I could get very fond of this flat land, driving through it in the morning like this I get to see it more clearly and I'm noticing things I've not noticed before when I've been driven. Unfortunately I've not noticed the way to the Wisbech by pass.

I got to work just in time for my course. I'm feeling very invested in at the moment this is the second course in as many weeks, this time I'm learning how to interview people correctly, the trainer looks and sounds just like Alan Bleasdale and one of my fellow students is Peter Griffin of Family Guy made flesh and brainier and more thoughtful and from the west country apart from that he's the dead spit. It feels like a good course and I've learnt lots of useful stuff already, tomorrow is the scary day, we've got to interview volunteers on their CVs but from a behavioural aspect tomorrow. It could all go horribly wrong.

Today I Have Been...

Mostly driving about the Lynn area, which means I've managed to miss most of the two 6 Nations rugby matches on today. I caught the last 15 minutes of the England - Italy match, although England won the game they looked very pedestrian against the Italians. By all accounts they were not the same team that beat Scotland so well last week, a match I missed fortunately for my poor wee Scotland supporting nature. I'm watching the last few seconds of the Scotland Wales game as I type this we are gonna win but apparently this has been a poor game too. The weather looks miserable up at Murryfield which could explain the lack of flowing rugby. But at least we won! :D

Brmmm Brmmm

I've got to the point where I don't really need that many more refresher lessons for driving maybe one perhaps two more but I do need practice so I get a chance to do the stuff I've relearnt and to do the maneuvering that you don't learn in lessons. I did my first ever multi-story car park today, the thought of going round one had always been on of my stress bunnies but doing driving around one in reality was far less stressful than I had first thought.

Mmmmm

Simon is creating a culinary masterpiece in the kitchen as I type which is already beginning to smell very tempting, chilli just the thing for a dreak, dull wintry day, he's gonna serve it burrito style I think, he's just wizzed up the salsa in the blender it all smells gorgeous. I suppose I best offer to help him, although it's a bit too early for yardarm time.