I will never complain about......

[flooritforever]

....Bristols roads again.

Just been to the motorshow. Decided to drive there. BIG mistake, as any number of people will undoubtedly now tell me.

In hindsight I probably wasn't very well prepared for getting through London, but it is the most awkward, confusing, unforgiving place to drive. Bristol really is a breeze by comparison! I shall NEVER do that again unless I really have to!

Lesson very painfully learned!

[m3ed]

I know what you mean.I drove down the M11,through the City onto Waterloo to catch the Eurostar to Paris after a meeting in Essex last week....Never again But at least the views were ok

[ewenm]

For all the complaining about it that goes on about it, the London Public Transport network is pretty good (even though it made me miss my train last week). I always investigate the train & tube/bus options first and take a car in centrally as a last resort.
Although, blatting round central London in the Caterham is quite good fun

[mechsympathy]

ewenm said:

For all the complaining about it that goes on about it, the London Public Transport network is pretty good (even though it made me miss my train last week). I always investigate the train & tube/bus options first and take a car in centrally as a last resort.:

Funnily enough I was about to complain about what a PoS it is I needed a zone 1 return this weekend and it was cheaper to buy a day travelcard at £4.60 or so each!

ewenm said:

Although, blatting round central London in the Caterham is quite good fun

[flooritforever]

ewenm said:

For all the complaining about it that goes on about it, the London Public Transport network is pretty good (even though it made me miss my train last week). I always investigate the train & tube/bus options first and take a car in centrally as a last resort.

This is what I intend to do the next time I venture over that way! Would have been much easier.

One wrong turn was all it took. If it had been a weekday that wrong turn would have had me contributing to Red Ken's additional car tax. As it was, I just ended up on the road I wanted to be, eventually, but going the wrong way....

And since this road in question was the A40 at Kings Cross, it took me a bloody long time to get off it, get turned round and back on it the right way!

[ewenm]

It's not all good though. I was pace-making a 5k track race last Wednesday evening in Battersea (yes, the "hottest day on record" day). It was a favour for a friend and we were having beers afterwards, so I ignored the heat and got the train from Bath to London, then planning the tube to Sloane Square and bus from there. Then getting the last train back (11:35pm)

First problem - First Great Western trains don;t have air conditioning that works in the heat!!!
Second problem - the tube was shut at Paddington, fortunately I'd given myself loads of time so walked to Battersea Park (about an hour).
Third problem - the tube arrivals boards lie to you, so the Circle Line train to take me back to Paddington after the beers never turned up and I missed the last train home
If only the boards had said the line was FUBAR'd then I'd have worked out an alternative. Stupidly I was breaking my own rule of never using the Circle or District lines.

Managed to wake a mate and crash on his floor for the night, then got stung an extra £56 to get home in the morning

Edited by ewenm on Monday 24th July 16:29

[fid]

Drove there today - came off of the M25 at junction 30, in to London simple as pie There was traffic coming out of ExCel, but once through that the journey home was pretty easy again.