Driving in England

Making the switch from right lane driving to left lane driving seemed delightfully easy when I picked up the rental car at Gatwick. I got us out of the parking lot and onto the highway as comfortably as if I'd always done it. 

And everything went well until we came to the first "y" about a quarter mile from the airport. I made a choice, and in seconds I knew it was the wrong one. Coming out of the "y," we were headed north. 


Winchester Cathedral required a southerly turn.


The divided road had no crossing roads. We had to do something, or we would be in London before long, which was not our destination.


When Muriel said, "There's a restaurant and gas station," I happily peeled off and parked.


I calculated that we were now about twenty miles in the wrong direction. That's not too different from knowing you're on the wrong subway. All you can do is get off.


Instead of asking a petrol attendant, we went into the restaurant. There we met a woman with red hair, a huge smile, and an accent so wonderful I stopped caring that I had erred. I just wanted her to keep talking. She sketched out a map that got us right to the cathedral.

I did better after that, EXCEPT that, every single morning, leaving our B&B, Muriel had to say, "Take the OTHER side, Dear. We're in England."


By Jove! We WERE!!! I knew that...most of the time. Only it didn't help getting us back to our B&B the first afternoon.


All British streets are just paved cow trails. They go where they please. I learned that returning from Winchester Cathedral.


"Just retrace the route you came." Hah!!!


First, we lost the car.  We were not sure of the color and had no idea what the plates said.  At last we found it by looking into several. One had some of our stuff.

We happily drove toward the road back to the B&B. That is, we were happy until we discovered that, during the day, a road repair crew had blocked off the way we had come.  




We knew to stay in the city, but there were no assistance signs, no detour marks, and not a “bobby” west of London.


We began to feel a sense of no progress when we passed the asylum for the insane for the third time. We could have parked and asked. But we decided not there.


Finally, I spotted a foot ruler sized arrow on the ground near the road block. What the bears, I thought. Our B&B is uphill. That little road seems to go uphill, and it's going away from London.

Our guess took us past the only restaurant we'd seen, They opened at six, not a tick sooner, and it was....six! So we ate and had the waitress (also with a delicious accent) tell us that, yes, indeed, we had guessed right this time. We were going in the right direction.