Good Journeys

We set off from Finchley at about 10.00 on Saturday morning, hoping to reach Preston (given the usual state of the traffic on the M1 and M6) around 3.00. Zooming up the M1 towards Luton, the expected slow down between Junctions 9 and 11 never happened - we continued zooming north. Then, onto the M6 we went and decided to take the new M6 Toll instead of chancing the M5 junction. What a lovely, fast, practically empty stretch of motorway that is - so new the embankments to either side aren't yet covered by grass. Well worth a couple of quid. Back onto the M6 proper the traffic was still moving well. Even with about 45 minutes in service stations, we were at our hotel by 2.15. An amazing journeytime.

The evening went pretty much as expected. The bride, a friend of mine from university, looked fabulous in her wedding dress, which she was wearing for the second time (the first was last month when they got married in the Dominican Republic) and the groom was rarely without a pint in his hand. Speeches were made, food was eaten and beer was drunk (in large amounts). We left earlier than most but some people were still going until 4 in the morning.

Then, all of a sudden it was time to head back home and another 4 hour journey saw us back in North London again. Never before have I traveled up or down the M1 or M6 without getting caught up in some bad traffic somewhere so for it to happen twice in one weekend was pretty good going.

I just wish I'd been able to catch up on some sleep on the way!