Friday, October 02, 2009

What a difference a new route makes

Having got totally fed-up with crawling up the hill to Holt Heath, this morning I took the longer route through Great Witley. This is rather counter-intuitive - I want to go East and am blocked so must go South or North (I've been going South)  Great Witley is West. So that's West then back all the way back East and what a delight it was; with only a couple of slow-downs from a Farrier van and someone who didn't like driving with the sun in their eyes I reached Holt Heath in less time than it took to reach the Lenchford and join the queue.

I forsook the left turn and took Church Lane instead to the island, and again that seemed to make a huge difference as the distinctive car I'd been following that took the first left turn was nowhere to be seen. A standard slow queue and 10 minutes to Ombersley then another 10 minutes and in.

Now to see if this route stays clear next week.

5 comments:

SteveS said...

Rumour at work going around that they are ahead of schedule on Gilgal and may open next week. Seems unlikely to me, having walked down by the Steps on my daily trip home and seen the work going on, but I did notice yesterday that it looked like one lane was clear looking back up from the Total garage. Heard anything?

FlipC said...

All quiet. I've seen that a lane looks clear, but whether that's to allow the work and residents easier access I couldn't say.

Hopefully I'll get a wander around this weekend and try to get chatting with any free crew.

Be nice if it finishes early, they do seem to have been working around the clock and we've been fortunate in the weather so they may well be ahead of schedule.

Don B said...

I was puzzled by your reference to Church Lane in Holt. I checked it out on Friday and I am sure you mean School Lane. There is a Church Lane in Shrawley (I live on it) and another in Astley parish but I don't think there is a Church Lane in Holt parish. Access to Holt Church is along a very odd byway for which I have never seen a name.

SteveS said...

Went down into Stourport today, big long hole outside Total garage, so just a rumour about any imminent sign of reopening. Guys not working Sunday, but everybody deserves one day off I suppose. Will be annoyed if they over run after not working 7 day week to get it done. Thats what we have to do at work on occasion, when somebody pushes the panic button, for the good of our customers demands and we are the customers, where Severn Trent etc are concerned.

FlipC said...

Don I'm sure you're right, trouble is my head doesn't process routes in a way that remembers names it's more a holistic entity; so 'small' names can get muddled.

Just one of the reasons I'm useless at giving directions (the other being a muddle between left and right unless I stop to think); I know the route or alternatives when I'm on them, but they don't gel when I'm not.

Steve - Someone suggested they may be operating on Scotty time (from Star Trek); tell the captain the four-week job will take five weeks and he'll think you're a genius when you take four.