I love driving.  A long distance run, the open road, the windows down and the wind in my hair….actually no, that’s not it at all.  The open road?  You can’t travel 30 feet on the motorway without meeting some old codger in the outside lane doing 50 and veering from side to side.  And if you had the windows down you’d get wet from all the rain.  But I really do love driving.  Occasional driving, to new and exciting places.  Not tedious rush-hour-snare-up-to-work driving or fortnightly-trip-to-swap-children-with-ex driving.

Today’s joyous jaunt was a children swap to Bicester, a 200 mile round trip.  Mine is a long story, one that I will reveal to you over the course of time, but for now all you need to know is that my 2 sons mainly live with their father, that they now live some distance away and that myself and my husband have to do all the driving to pick them up.  The Bicester trip is a dull one.  The roads are fast but they are long and not very interesting.  Their main problem is that there are other cars on them.  All sorts of cars.  And vans.  And lorries.  And caravans.

Today was no exception and as well as all of the annoying car and van shaped obstacles there was rain.  Lots of rain.  I am an impatient driver.  I like to get from A to B in the shortest time possible with the minimum of fuss and ideally in one piece.  I cannot understand why it is that within 30 seconds of my starting the engine people everywhere start behaving like arseholes.  Is it just me this happens to?  The rain makes them even worse and they were out in force today.  Not moving over to let people (me) out on slip roads.  Driving 2 feet away from the car in front (mine) despite the rain.  And the old codger doing 50 in the outside lane was there too.  He was weaving from side to side in his Rover, first lining himself up with the right hand white lines and then with the left.  I was cross.

That’s another thing about me when I’m driving.  I’m impatient AND intolerant.  It never ceases to amaze me just how stupid some drivers (and cyclists and pedestrians) are.  Why are all the other drivers so rubbish at driving?  Why do so few of them use their bloody mirrors?  My annoyance manifests itself as ranting.   With swearing.  I feel duty bound to tell each and every person that upsets me exactly where they’re going wrong with their driving.  With so many morons on the roads I’m often hoarse by the time I get home.  But I don’t actually tell them these things to their faces. I don’t like confrontation unless I’m speeding away from them, safely locked in my fast moving metal box on wheels.

My favourite idiot today was driving a mini, first about a foot from my bumper until they swerved out into the traffic (without indication), undertook me and then cut me up on a roundabout.  Once on the motorway they swerved about from lane to lane, never indicating, desperately trying to make more ground than everyone else stuck in the rush hour queues.  50 miles later and after a car left the motorway I caught up with them.  All that lane changing which endangered the lives of the people around them was for what, exactly? Absolutely nothing, especially when he couldn’t get back into the outside lane and I overtook him and sped away.  Obviously while telling him what an idiot I thought he was.  God, I love driving.