Travel Mode

It would have been nice to have gone to Robbie and Freida's housewarming, but it was in Bedfordshire and the rail strikes made the whole thing rather inconvenient. I could still have battled my way round the M25 for a couple of hours, but others such as MaisyMaid, Lady Wildwood and Ms Mauritia didn't have that option; Her Ladyship lives not far away, so I could conceivably have given her a lift, but the others have to come from central London. Had they been able to go, I would have braced myself for the drive; had they not but had the trains been running anyway, I would have got there that way. The combination of both, however, meant I elected to stay home. 

When my current vehicle gives up, I'll probably replace it with an electric car, but I'm not quite confident of the charging network and technological efficiency yet, and so for now I try to avoid driving if I can. Yesterday morning Churches Together had a Prayer Breakfast at the Baptist Church in Midbury, and I thought that really I ought to cycle there if I could. It's only about 3 1/2 miles and should take about twenty minutes. They turned out to be twenty long and arduous minutes although, as is curiously common, the return journey was noticeably less trying. Ironically as I wasn't going to Robbie and Freida's after all I used part of the time by taking some trash to the tip, which journey takes me along exactly the same route I'd done on two wheels earlier in the day.

I have a lot of driving to do next week, when I am off, popping down to Dorset and hopefully to Cambridgeshire. I'd rather go there on the train, but even though the Tube strikes have been called off the journey turns out to be off-puttingly expensive. A visit to Oxford looks feasible, though, although as the line down from Swanvale Halt is closed due to engineering works I'll have to go to the next station to catch it. I ought to cycle there, I suppose.