Despite The Glare.... I Made It There.

Ah yes, last Tuesday I went to Wales.  Remembering which side of the road to drive on, the left side, was one heck of a good and vital start.  Yes indeed, I can imagine the following situation.  Driving along and some British police dude indicates to me to pull over.  "Excuse me sir, but you are driving on the 'right' side of the road!".  To which I reply, "That's okay then."

I don't have satellite navigation in my car.  No voice of Mr. T telling me, "At the next roundabout, sucker, take the first left.  I said the first left, not the second left, fool!"  Or the alluring voice of  Joanna Lumley stating, "You've arrived, darling!"

Tuesday was a very sunny day.  The entire trip from Leek, Staffordshire, England to Cardigan, Wales, was a matter of driving directly towards the sun.  No, not literally.  However, the glare off the road was so bad that I could barely make out the direction signs at roundabouts.  This meant, even though I mostly knew how to get to my destination, some roundabouts were guesswork.  

And some roundabouts where I could almost make out the name of a place I needed to head to next, suddenly became mystery roundabouts where the names I could almost make out, made no sense at all.  What happened to 'Upper Lower Piggy Bottom'?  One roundabout got me so confused, I ended up getting dizzy as I went round and round and round....until finally I gave up, took a chance and much to my relief, discovered I was on the correct road.

To go from my place to Cardigan, Wales, is a distance of 162 miles.  Being mostly on single lane roads and getting stuck behind tractors on winding, uphill roads, meant it took 4 1/4 hours to do 162 miles.

The last part of the journey is from the town of Aberystwyth.  From Aberystwyth to my friend's house, near Cardigan, is a total of 37 miles.  During the entire 37 miles, a Welsh police car followed behind me.  Weird, even though I wasn't doing anything wrong, I kept waiting for the lights to flash and get pulled over.  I start thinking, "Did I pass that last tractor at a correct place, do I maybe have a burnt out break light...I gonna' end up in jail....." Then I pulled into my friend's driveway and thankfully, the police car didn't follow me into the driveway.

From late Tuesday afternoon until noon on Saturday, I stayed with my friend.  I like to think that we created positive distractions as both of us are going through some challenging times.

Every time I go out, I have to confront my social fears.  To drive a car without any company just compounds my anxiety.  Yet, once again, I was determined to challenge my inner critic and I'm so glad I did.

I am deeply, profoundly grateful for your support.  I'm very sorry I've not been as interactive on other blogs as I would like to be.  I will do my best to rectify that.

I reflect back as night fell upon the harbour in Cardigan, Wales.  No matter what the oppressors try to impose, they will never get the better of me, or you.