Yesterday I visited Richard Aspden (Microchip) in Nelson. We drove, (with me at the helm – I hasten to add) and my able-bodied co-pilot (bringer of sanity and beach boys) one David Keysell (Snowball), from Lancaster to Nelson and back again. All might have been smooth and easy were it not for the fact that not having passed my driving test yet I was forced to do the journey via road. Lancaster to Nelson with no motorways! Which is harder than you might think!
Our outbound journey looked a little like this: We drove from Lancaster out to Quernmore, down to Forton, down to Bay Horse, and onto the A6 at Barton, down a little way and then right at Broughton, through Goosnargh, Longridge across and up to Knowle Green, sailing past Hurst Green and Great Mitton, and then down to Whalley, Read, and Simonstone, and it was only when we reached Padiham that everything went truly wrong.
All of the directions we had care of http://www.multimap.co.uk/ and by way of road signs we could see pointed to Nelson but sooner or later terminated at one junction or another for the M65! They would start off as White Signs suggesting a non motorway road, and mysteriously change to blue motorway signs for the M65 before your eyes. Whichever way you turned. I suspect I would feel less bitter about this had I not made us drive right towards that first white sign for Nelson when Dave suggested we should in fact be turning right!
Having circled around Burnley a few times we eventually succeeded in finding our way back onto the A6068 and arrived in Nelson. We set off at 2pm and didn’t arrive until about 17:20.
I think having had such fun getting there I was determined to have an alternative return route. So on the way back we went from Nelson to Colne, up to Barnoldswick across on a toilet track to Bracewell, then made a huge tactical error and drove to Skipton, although from Skipton we succeeded in finding the A65 and travelling up through Gargrave and Long Preston we eventually arrived in Settle.
The A65 road was smaller and narrower than I remembered, I had visions of a big multi-lane dual carriageway. By now it was 21:30. We were travelling through the pitch black, in torrential rain, a thick blanket of fog had descended, and much of the road was flooded. I had the windscreen wipers on the fiercest setting and it was only just managing to divert the buckets of rain that dashed my windscreen. Each time the car went cutting through one of the deep puddles (the word seems inadequate – ponds perhaps would be more appropriate) that spanned the road, the electrics in the car would become less than reliable. My battery light would flash along with my warning light, this would be accompanied with the smell of burning rubber, and suddenly the power assisted brakes were mostly chocolate teapots. Sometimes the car skidded and sometimes it did not. The lights did not completely flash on and off… they sort of strobed like we were about to be abducted, although I suspect the UFOs were put off by the weather!
We passed through Giggleswick (I have to mention it cause I like the name so much) on to Clapham and then finally we were at Ingleton. We turned right onto the A687 and travelled west to Burton in Lonsdale, Hornby (where Katie and I once set off in a Hot Air Balloon) down to Caton and then finally back into Lancaster! We arrived at about 11pm. All in all it was very “Special”!