No kidding! Especially if you are stupid enough to have booked yourself onto a 10am plane. But, innocent that I am, in the quest to be a good wife I have now fallen twice into the get-to-Heathrow-on-time-through-the-traffic trap. I must be either insane or I love Andrew very much. I haven't quite figured out which is which.
My first foray into the madness of the M25 highway happened a week or so ago when I had to get him to Terminal One for a 10 o'clock flight to the US.
I thought we had set off in a timely manner. Five thirty in the morning is flippin' early, if you ask me, especially for a trip that should only take 1 hour and 42 minutes according to Google maps.
They lied.
Try three and a half hours and you might just make it in time to witness them slamming closed the gate to your flight.
The problem? Forget about bumper-to-bumper traffic, you couldn't have slipped a playing card between the almost stationary cars stretched for about 30 miles ahead of us . . .
And the worst? I was desperate for the loo.
Ever heard that crude expression 'my back teeth were floating'? Yeah, well, they were. Just about.
But as the clock hands clicked relentlessly towards gate closure time, there was no hope of mentioning a pit stop to Andrew. He was grinding his teeth to the gums in frustration . . . We had stopped counting trucks carrying pipes and trucks carrying big cranes some hours back. . . We do that to pass the time on long trips. (He won, by the way . . .)
I finally turfed him out the car at Heathrow a few minutes before nine, waited to see if he'd made the flight - he did. Just. And then I sped off to find the closest service station - only to discover it's about thirty miles from Heathrow . . . by that time I was driving with my legs crossed. Trust me, that's an interesting manoeuvre, but I think the subject for a post on another day.
So, walking into Mordor? Those black gates guarded by Orcs are nothing compared to the perils of the getting to Heathrow via the M25.
And as for the air? The poison fumes come from nothing more than ten thousand car exhausts. I added a blinding headache, even with the window closed, to my woes by the time I reached the terminal building. That airport sure guards its departure lounges well.
And to think I used to complain about a 40 minute drive in bad traffic to Cape Town International airport. We honestly don't know when we're spoilt!
Have a great weekend
Cheers
Gwynn
