The Long And Winding Road

Approximately 300 miles and 12 hours after leaving the hotel this morning, we are finally sat in our own house enjoying a cup of tea.
I should say that it wasn’t actually 12 hours of solid driving - we had a series of detours, for a variety of reasons. It’s mum’s birthday tomorrow so we headed towards Chester in order that we could call in on her and deliver a card and some flowers. With holdups likely on the M6 around Birmingham, we actually left the M5 at Worcester and headed across country. Slower driving but at least we kept moving.
We’d been aware all day that there had been a bad crash on the M6 this morning, with the whole motorway being closed for a while. When we left mum, it was still closed southbound and reported as being very slow northbound. So we decided to waste some time before heading home. First of all, a visit to Cheshire Oaks Retail Village. Mrs C bought a couple of things but I didn’t see anything worth opening my wallet for. I decided that a picture of “Joy” was the only thing I would take away with me today.
Then we went to IKEA in Warrington for tea - couldn’t believe how busy it was for a Monday night! But worth the queue to sit down to a plate of their famous meatballs. A quick visit to the M&S next door for some milk, and we finally hit the M6 again around 9pm. Traffic was very light by then and we had a trouble free journey home with no holdups. Which is more than could be said for traffic heading south. Motorway was still closed for barrier repairs and all traffic was being diverted down the A6 through Garstang. Looked horrendous, and the tailback of traffic waiting to get off the motorway was about 3-4 miles of very slow/almost stationery traffic. I feel very sorry for them as I don’t think the road will be reopened any time soon.
I will sleep well tonight…