Mission Impossible

One Saturday a few months back I was due in Swindon to meet with some friends for some discount shopping. An easy task you might think: get in car, drive to Swindon, park, buy shoes…! Nah, not easy at all, Mission Impossible in fact – and it takes a lot to get between me and some shoe-shopping!

First up, I had to get up! Ok, easy: alarm clock and coffee, ready to go! Next, find postcode for Swindon Outlet Centre – Google is my friend! Ok, off to Swindon with trusty GPS…

Uh oh, no trusty GPS voice (John Cleese in fact, very good navigator: bear right, beaver left!) telling me to “turn around when possible” – he always gets confused by the fact  that I’m parked in the driveway and thinks that I’m going the wrong way out of our street! Never mind I thought, sketchy memories of The Man’s instructions to go up the hill to Leckhampton, the GPS will kick in as I’m driving.

So, up the hill to Leckhampton, still no GPS, get to a fork in the road and turn right because I don’t recognise any names signposted to the left. Find myself back in Cheltenham!

Right, get a grip Harriet, you know the way to the motorway, near the GCHQ doughnut, and surely you get to Swindon by motorway?

Off I toddle in Megan, but still minus trusty GPS – could GCHQ be blocking the signal? (Quick aside/admission here: I make up stories about how things work!) Shoes are calling – come on Harriet, lots of size three left, Brits have big feet – onto the motorway, sign says Bristol straight on and I think to myself, no, Bristol is the wrong way, although there’s very good shopping at Cribbs Causeway near there (and The Man bought me two VERY nice pairs of boots there!) better come off at the next exit and look at the map.

Note: at this point in time I didn’t actually live in Cheltenham, and although I had driven to Swindon before, it was from Oxford, and even I know that to go to Oxford in order to get to Swindon is ‘a bit’ of a detour!

Back to The Mission, somebody right up my back end on the roundabout, take any exit and start panicking, where am I going to stop and look at the map? Eventually I draw in at Endsleigh and phone The Man, in tears, I’m darned well back in Cheltenham – I don’t know how to get home, and I don’t know how to get to Swindon, from here.

Turns out it’s easier to get home, so I do! Cut to weeks later: the roundabout where I took any old exit… I was on the way to Swindon if I’d just had faith!  Later still: The Man has bought a new GPS, I can even pick the dog up from his kennels on my own now (the last time I picked him up on my own I took a very touristy route home!)!

So, take it from me, Cheltenham has some sort of gravitational pull, once you’re there, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave *!

*Lyrics, Eagles, Hotel California

~ by harrietdg on July 20, 2008.