CROSS-COUNTRY TO OXFORD

There was blue sky over Oxford as I beetled along Northway. Just as well too; the journey to work had been grey and wet and kind of annoying. I felt I was owed some sunshine.

I was late, for one thing. I had had to pick up all the soggy recycling that had been blown around the garden overnight. It was unpleasant, picking up bits of soggy cardboard packaging and yoghurt pots half full of rainwater. All the while the cold rain had been pecking me as it spotted from the miserable sky.

I said goodbye to Sammy and flung myself into the car. The engine rattled, the radio piped up, and the car jolted backwards out of the drive while I grabbed the seatbelt. 

About five minutes later, as the cheery presenters interviewed a government minister (who I suddenly thought would make a decent apologist for Lord Voldemort), I realised with a shudder that I’d left my security pass behind. I swung round, raced home and swiped it from the corner of my desk, wondering why on Earth I don’t just keep it in my rucksack the whole time.

Life’s all about learning, isn’t it? The radio presenters barrelled onwards talking about inflation, the BAFTAs, and an athlete who’s gunning for her third Olympics. The trees dripped with rain. The windscreen wipers squeaked across the glass with indignation.

A few minutes later, I was in a queue of traffic on Whitchurch Bridge, scrabbling around for 60p for the toll. I found a pound coin, wound down the window and dropped it heavily into the cupped, manicured hands of the tollbooth operator. She gave me four shiny ten pence pieces in return. It’s ludicrous to think it, but I couldn’t remember the last time I actually saw a ten pence piece.

Then on the other side of the bridge, I was stuck in traffic. There was a lot of beeping behind me, but I just assumed it was frustration. The car ahead was going nowhere. After about ten minutes, a white van, several vehicles back, pulled out of the queue and zoomed angrily past me.

“Where are you off to?” I wondered out loud. He disappeared out of sight. More beeping in the traffic.

“Well there’s nothing I can do,” I said, with a note of resignation. I checked my rear view mirror. The lady behind was looking puzzled. I gave her a smile. She scowled back and then swung her steering wheel round, angled past me, and rushed on, up the road. A thought occurred to me.

I peered forwards at the car in front. There was nobody in the driving seat. I had been waiting behind a row of parked cars.

-

Fiddly roads, Google maps taking me down potholed short cuts in the rain. Oxford gleamed finally, the slate roofs just catching the sun. I turned into Summertown and headed down the familiar tree-lined avenue that leads to where I work.

Of the three ways to get here, the cross-country route is perhaps my least favourite. Pedro listened to me complaining about it as I fished my laptop out of my rucksack. He asked all the right questions. I said I preferred the train, or even the angry, impatient traffic on the A34. My guess is that I’ll go back that way, rather than let the sat nav take me on another tour of Oxfordshire potholes and villages.

For one thing, all I have is four ten penny pieces, and that isn’t enough for the toll bridge.