A day on the road

Wide awake now, which was more than I can say by the time I returned home today after my wee jaunt to Runcorn via Glasgow.

Arrived in Glasgow and young Jill was a bit late , having had a couple of calls during the night - anyway, eventually hit the road to join my white van men - who were in fine fettle today, I honestly thought there had been a full moon!! It was not just one at a time, at one stage there were three in convoy going like the clappers. No 1 flying machine was an alarm engineer from Claymore Lock and Alarm who was really flying, he passed me just north of Moffat on the A74, going like the aircraft I saw at the same place last week - But what was worse, having passed he suddenly pulled back into the inside lane, causing others to slow to avoid him, and when I passed him again he had the usual mobile phone glued to his ear - for commercial companies with men on the road all day, I just fail to understand why they do not have hands free systems.
Next "looney" was north of Lancaster in a Bedford Luton van, working for Wolsley, and the van was jumping, what can you expect at around 95 / 100 mph.

Made it to Runcorn, no Jill on Reception as she had taken herself on holiday (without my permission!!) and then to make matters worse I had phoned ahead for my bacon butty - rubbish, burnt offer of the bacon, but the roll was crap - so perhaps Dick Turpin's sisters should be called the "Incinerator Sisters" !!!

Homewards, but it was a bit of a strain on the Motorway, however when I turned off onto the A701 at Moffat, things perked up. Moffat was bathed in sunshine, and full of tourists and busy.

Headed north east on the A701, up over The Devil's Beeftub, when a very nice sports car came up behind me- so I let him past, and from then on I managed to more or less stay with him all the way to Rommano Bridge before I was blocked off. Another of my pet hates were the camper vans - who were causing long tail backs and making no attempt at giving way.
The John Buchan Centre at Broughton was just opening up as I passed, one day I will take the time to stop and go have a look see.

Interesting thing today was that the Tour of Britain cycle race was taking place running parallel to my route, but in the opposite direction from Peebles to Gretna Green via Newcastletown - and from what I saw on ITV 4 it was a superb race, very scenic and with ninety nine riders, an excellent field.

I remember a story, which took place during the Lockerbie Bombing enquiry, one of the local policeman went into the unmanned Police station at Newcastletown, popped into the ell to use the toilet and the self locking cell door closed behind him !! He was stuck there for hours until someone realised he was missing and went looking for him - no phone in the loo.