By Well, the original plan was to set off at about 9:00am, unfortunately, Paul needed to go to Tesco so didn't get to John's until 10:40am.
Travelling along the back road to Cockermouth the Traffic News interrupted our music enjoyment with news of a major accident on the A66, involving 2 coaches and a petrol tanker. After conferring on the phone we decided to meet up with the other car at Penrith and plan from there.
Anyway, we ended up travelling down the M6 to junction 36 and heading along the A65 to Skipton and then the A59 via Harrogate to the M1. Since we had the atlas it was decided that I would lead, although Colin soon forgot about that as we hopscotched past one another on the M6 and later the M1. Had a close call on the A65 when Colin crested a rise to discover standing traffic on the other side and quickly broke. I had to follow suit extremely rapidly and with the car well loaded down it seemed that it was never going to stop, but did with inches to spare before ploughing in to the back of his Focus. About 2 hours later I would have an even closer shave with yet another Focus on the M1 just south of Sheffield. Accelerating away from the end of a queue I was distracted by some "tottie" and only a hasty shout from Paul of "Bowch brake" and an instant reaction on my part of braking without even looking what he was referring to prevented me from slamming in to the back of somebody.
With the delayed start and the alternate route we never reached Donnington until 4:30pm. After dropping off the guys and half the kit I parked up the car and rejoined them in the queue to get in. Was just after 7:00pm when we finally got through the main gates and was closer to 8:00pm by time we found a patch and got the tents pitched. Was almost 9:30pm by time we got everything else from the car and back to the tents. By that time I was ready for a drink and the notion of popping in to see Fluff, who only lives about 20 miles from Donnington, after arriving had long gone due to the lateness of our arrival and setting up. I'm visitng Alley in August so might visit Fluff either on the way down or the way back; that's if I decide to drive, which is possible.
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