On Friday, I went to meet with a friend who lives in
Harpenden - one of the many interesting and pretty places along the A5 route. My first 'proper' trip in my shiny new Up! (Missy)
The Up! version that I have acquired is appropriately called 'Move' (There are 13 differently called models of the Up! - including 'Take Up', Move Up, High, Groove, Rock ...etc) Very appropriate for me that I've got the one called MOVE because that is exactly what this little treasure is designed to do for me!) so it seems only natural I suppose to make a move towards exploring the historic route that goes to make up The A5 Road. I live just off this road, and something I've always hankered to do, is to follow and explore the whole length of the road.
The A5 is a major road in England and Wales. It runs for about 260 miles (420 km) (including sections concurrent with other designations) from London, England to Holyhead, Wales, following in part a section of the Roman Iter II route which later took the Anglo-Saxon name
Watling Street.
My friend does voluntary work 2-3 days a week in a Charity Shop. I had arranged to meet him after his Friday morning stint in the shop - at the coffee place right next to the shop. I had found just one parking place right in the middle of the town, and when I parked up and phoned him to find out where I go from there, describing my immediate whereabouts - he said just look in front of you, maybe 2 mintues away, and you will see the coffee shop. He was standing outside when I got there! I could not have got any nearer to the place - and I had just sailed smoothly into this [only] parking place as soon as I got there. It was meant!
Harpenden can be approached by way of three other major routes from where I am, but being almost phobically averse to boring motorway driving, my choice of route was a straight road (more or less!) keeping to the Roman tradition, passing through some lovely little villages and towns (well, you can probably eliminate
Edgware, one of the first, from the pretty or interesting category), but once you Move Up!
into the bordering county of Hertfordshire, through places like
Radlett and
St Albans, it's really quite a pleasant journey and I thoroughly enjoyed the doing of it.
My trip took me not much more than an hour, which surprised both my friend and myself really, considering I was going along for the most part at a comfortable pace and had even made a 10 mins or so stop to fill up with petrol along the way.
I enjoyed my mini tour of this lovely little town, and before I left to come back (avoiding the Friday evening rush-hours), I had a mooch around the charity shop where my friend works.
Spent £7.50 there on the purchase of a few interesting and unique little items: A lovely little painted milk jug, two small and unusually decorated stoneware drinking mugs - perfect for coffee - a nicely decorated china, medium-sized sort of trinket box with lid, the colours perfectly matched for my newly constructed walk-in shower room. That's gone straight in there on the window shelf. And last but not least - a thingy ... some sort of weirdly shaped receptacle, again china with a pretty painted design. After some humming and hawing, decided to place this beside the kettle to put the squeezed tea-bags in before transferring to the bin the other side of the kitchen, saving on drips en route and more importantly helping to avoid the spasms of gripping pain that can often occur on making sometimes the slightest of turns or movements (like lifting the kettle to pour water into the cup and then other movements like reaching for the milk, etc.) On the days when the pain is really bad, I have found it's better to try and keep the turns and jerky movements to a minimum and try to do as much as I can "in a straight line".
So, thoroughly enjoyed my first mini practice run along at least part of the A5, although have to say I really paid for it later on that night (3 hours sleep) and most of the next day ... pains and grips. That's what quite often happens. Fine at the time when you're doing it, but it does often gang up on you the next day.
In this case it was the sitting in the car for such a length of time without changing position. Although only about an hour or so, it was too long for me to be in ANY position for such a time. I simply just have to remember to pace myself, take little breaks at regular intervals - even though I don't think I need to at the time, stretch the legs etc.
If I were to fulfill my dream and cover the whole road - all the way up to
Holyhead, and (ya never know?) maybe on over to Ireland (a route I've taken many times in the past) .... it might take me 5 or 6 times longer than it would take a 'normal' person - but it can be done and be quite an enjoyable experience.