Cruising Life in the Slow Lane

My new job involves a bit of a commute. It’s what we’d describe in SA as a moerse trek. An hour’s drive each way. But to the Pom-a-longs, it’s nothing. They’re used to driving for days simply to have clotted cream scones or a special pint. I’d bitch having to drive 30 kilometres in South Africa. Now I do 122 kilometres every day. I’ve had to change my attitude here. Distance is a state of mind. Everyone does it. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that most people live in a shoebox so venturing out to wide open spaces is a prerequisite if you don’t want to lose all your piggies and end up in the looney bin.

Every morning I set off west from the city. Past Maidenhead. Past Henley on Thames. I pass through three counties. Berkshire through Buckinghamshire to Oxfordshire. To a region that’s known as the Cotwolds. I go through two villages. Think beautiful stone cottages set against green pastures. Think tractors. Think cows. Think sheep. To fill the time, I amuse myself with a little comparison of my journey to work here versus my journey to work in South Africa. Ok so we’d also have tractors at home. There’d usually be one broken down on Fields Hill. There’d be cows and sheep too. Tied with rope. On the back of a bakkie crawling along the highway. En route to a politician’s shindig in a marquee in his back garden. There’d even be stones. Except not clad on the walls of cottages. They'd be strategically placed on the roofs of houses to keep them from blowing off. Or littered under the highway bridges after a car-stoning fest. This kind of comparison analysis amuses me. For a long time. I have a simple mind. Clearly.

My journey would probably be a little faster were it not for the fact that before we knew I’d be commuting to work on my own steam and not via public transport, we purchased a gas guzzling 4x4. Our car is a family car. Great for city life. Bunging your kids and groceries in the boot. Comfort – check. Safety – check. Hitting other cars and emerging unscathed – check. But it’s not such a good car for commuting. It chows petrol faster than pacman eats those dots. The only way to make our vehicle remotely efficient is to drive at a particular speed. We’ve worked out it’s 60 miles per hour for long distances. Which is just under 100km per hour. This means I’m relegated to the slow lane on the highway. The pantechnicon trucks pass me. The tractors pass me. Every granny in Berkshire passes me. Most likely twice. They can pull over. Haul out their walkers. Have a spot of tea. Talk about the Queen. And then still overtake me. It’s excruciatingly slow. But what’s different here to SA is that no one creeps up my boot, flashes their lights or hoots like a lunatic. I’m left alone to drive at my snail’s pace with no judgment. There are three lanes and everyone finds their groove. Sally’s found her groove. And it’s slow. Which is a good thing. Because I’m still not quite sure of how to navigate the narrow country lanes with the cyclists who take up a third of the width. They’re like kamikaze pilots. I’m the only one of this opinion though. The Brits are completely unfazed by the presence of the little peddling legs attached to what look to me like neon tortoises hunched over the handlebars. They’ll happily slow their cars down to a crawl and then wait to overtake giving a ridiculously wide berth. In SA, it would be carnage. Sideswiped cyclists littered all over the road. Their bikes loaded on the back of a bakkie for scrap metal. I nearly took a cyclist out on my first trip to work last week. I came around the corner and there he was. Peddling genteelly. Not a care in the world. Strangely calm for someone who nearly had his face planted on my bonnet. I was so close I could see his armpit hair. I wanted to stop my car. Get out. And bitch slap him. You know that feeling when one of your kids gets perilously close to being injured by running into a busy road or stepping too close to the edge of a balcony? In that terrifying instant, you go cold from shock. Your heart explodes in your chest. And then once the immediate danger is over, the rage kicks in and all you want to whack the imp for putting you through the anguish. This may just be me though. Probably is.

Unless I can ensure I don’t plough into Queen-fearing Granny as she overtakes me on the M40 towards Oxford. And I manage to avoid cannonballing a cyclist. Or fleecing a sheep with my bumper. I have to admit that I’m quite partial to my weekday journeys to the office. As much as I miss the good old N2 and M13 and their familiar routes driving me home, there’s something magical about the winding country roads, beautiful stone cottages and fields of green. I used to favour a foot-flat pace and I'd automatically choose the fast lane. A slower pace to take in the scenery to me was just a waste of time. I'm starting to change my mind though. This life in the slow lane ain't half bad. It ain't half bad at all.

Step outside my office.

Who I meet when I pull out of the office car park.