I visit my
parents in Cornwall as often as I can. I
seem to be good at choosing a time to drive down, but bad at picking a moment
to come back.
My last two
homeward journeys have been interrupted by crashes on the M5. (I haven’t investigated to discover the
nature of the accidents – I don’t want to know.)
Each time,
Google maps has routed me across country to the A303.
I have
travelled through thatched hamlets on narrow tracks that appeared to have been
adopted only recently by the council. I
have followed a caravan which was perilously scraping the hedges on both
sides. And then I have ground to a halt
detained by a new traffic jam created by all the other drivers who have been
following Google’s whimsical advice.
I have
often felt that Google is toying with me.
Perhaps even that my cross-country struggles are being observed by some
super-villain at the heart of an IT hub, cackling “Mwah-hah-hah!”
But if
there is one thing that has made the massive detours worthwhile, it is the
moment on the A303 when, from around a hillock appears the magnificent,
square-shouldered grey monument of Stonehenge.
It lifts my heart with its ancient presence, and the engineering
achievement it represents makes me proud to be British.
Which is
just as well, because if Brexit goes through, we’ll be right back to the Stone
Age.
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