Toll Avoidance

Finally the long awaited day we set off on our holidays. Woohoo!!
Miss L had her first swimming lesson today at the new level. She was so much smaller than all the others - at least a year younger! She had a bit of a wobble because her usual teacher was away but she got in. Her goggles kept pinging off and she brought up the rear for the whole class but I think she enjoyed it!
We picked up Miss E, came home for dinner, packed everything we own into our tiny car, squeezed ourselves in and set off.
All went pretty well until we got to Thurrock Services. The Frozen soundtrack was rocking, the Little Misses were sleeping and we were zooming along.
Then I made the mistake of asking to stop at the services.
It took hours to actually find the services. We took a wrong turn on one roundabout and then had to drive through eight hundred miles of dimly lit trucks to get to the dimly lit car park. Which was full of rats. Yuck.
To get to the toilets I had to go down into a dimly lit basement. Just me and a lone man sat on a massage chair. I don't normally get spooked but it was a bit scary - there was no-one else down there.
I hurried back upstairs to get us some drinks. I asked the man for a cappuccino.
"No cappuccino"
"Hot chocolate then"
"No hot drinks. Only tea"
Oh my goodness!
Then I dodged the rats back to the car and we hot footed it out of there as quickly as we could.
Which wasn't very fast because the slip road back on to the M25 was closed.
Oh my God.
So it was a diversion around millions of hideous roundabouts and then eventually back on to the stationary M25.
And a painful crawl over the QE2 bridge to the toll booths.
As we approached I saw that the signs say that the £2 charge didn't apply after 10pm.
It was 9.54pm as we inched our way forward.
And 9.58pm as we got to the booths. Annoying.
Then Mr K noticed a few cars had stopped over to the left. We joined our fellow cheapskates and waited.
Flashing lights and sirens appeared to my left gesturing us to get moving. Oops.
Mr K - in an uncharacteristic display of law-breaking - sneered that it was just a Traffic Officer!
Just as the stand-off was getting awkward the overhead signs changed to Free, the barriers went up and we zoomed on our way. £2 better off. Woohoo!!
We arrived at the Purple Hotel (as Miss E calls Premier Inns), carried the sleeping Little Misses in and then passed out ourselves.
The alarm was set for six and a half hours time. Ouch!