4th March. A Day Ruined

 I should have collected a car from Audi Aylesbury last night going to Wolverhampton which is important for two reasons. One, it saves train fare costs and you have another paid job for the day. When you plan these jobs, days in advance it's good to see the day filled and cost and time efficient.

So I turned up to collect the Audi which quite close to home. Which was , as I said going to Wolverhampton. That just meant a couple of stops on a train to a Lea Hall. Where the van was being collected from.

But no, Well done Audi Aylesbury for the second time the car was "in the body shop"

Now being a 20+ year veteran of used car management. This is exactly the sort of excuse I would have used to keep hold of a piece of prime or profitable stock. So the annoyance was more than normal for me. And it means an early start tomorrow to get the train from Aylesbury firstly to Banbury. Then Birmingham New Street. Before changing for the slow train to Lea Hall. The day was made worse by the cancellation of the second train from Banbury to Newcastle. Stopping at Birmingham New Street. I had a 45 minute wait for the next train stopping at Birmingham New Street. Which was a packed Manchester Piccadilly train. So standing only (In a packed area outside the toilet) from Banbury to Birmingham.

Thank you Aylesbury Audi.

I eventually arrived at Lea Hall station and from there is a short walk to the Vertu Ford storage and logistics compound.

Having been here a few times now. The walk is littered with interesting businesses. I may have said before but one looks like a Japanese car importer as now there are even more vehicles literally parked everywhere on pavements, driveways, and even two deep parked on the, thankfully not busy dead end road. The last business being the compound I was collecting from.

Also situated at the end is the driving test centre. It must cater for a big area as it's massive and has a motorcycle training part at the side. The few road around here are also full of learning drivers . So getting out can be slow.

Today I was collecting a brand new Transit E. And it needed charging. So I quickly did a search for the nearest rapid charge points and found one conveniently at a McDonald's so a 30 minutes charge coincided with a Sausage and egg muffin and a cappuccino. Result!!

Once charged I headed for the close by M42 which is reached by circumventing Birmingham international airport at Solihull and then the M42 and eventually the M40 southbound to Bicester and the horrible pothole destroyed A41 to Aylesbury.

Destroyed by the continuous heavy trucks from the wonderful, much needed and cost effective HS2 construction. What a beautiful addition to the Buckinghamshire and surrounding countryside.