London - Grrrrrrrr!

Work is manic at the moment - I am in the middle of a series of presentations to one of our clients - by the end of the series I will have presented 45 times in 17 different locations. Last week I travelled almost 900 miles visiting Newcastle, Scarborough, Barnsley, Birmingham and Norwich ( I get all the best gigs!), and by and large those travels were fairly trouble free. With the exception of a 30 minute delay on the M11 coming back from Birmingham, I have been pretty successful in keeping moving thus far. So, today's trip seemed fairly simple - starting off in Richmond at 9am, followed by the City of London at 2pm. Now I know the M25 can have it's off days, so with that in mind I set off at 6am. 3 hours, 75 miles, that should be fine.

All was going well, I was across the Dartford crossing by 6.45 and everything was still moving until junction 5. Then I stopped, and started and stopped and so on for about the next 30 miles, and for no apparent reason either. Still, I got off the dreaded M25 at 8am, and only had about 9 miles to go, so that should be fine shouldn't it?? At 8.45 I was thinking I was cutting it a bit fine, but was entering Richmond so just about had time to get parked, unload the car, set up the laptop and projector etc for a 9am start, as long as there was no further problems. Then the phone rang - it was the meeting organiser, who was based at the company's main office in Hertfordshire to inform me that she was very sorry, but she had given me the incorrect address for the presentation. It wasn't at their office, but at the Hampton Hill Playhouse. Great!! So I punched the details into Navman and set off for the extra couple of miles now added to my journey, except in turning around I was now sat in a queue of traffic waiting to get out of a junction. However, I located the Playhouse, parked up, unloaded the car and went in - only to be told by bloke who worked there that they had been told on Friday that the meeting was cancelled! After a few phonecalls it was established that there had been a bit of an error, and then 3 people turned up for the first session. The HR rep from the company was stuck on the M25 so I started on my own. I'd sat in the car for 3 hours, and had no breakfast, so by the end of the session I was starving! Anyway, grabbed some toast, and went back for the second session, which 5 people turned up for, and the HR rep also managed to arrive for.

I was finished by 12, and was due in the City of London for 2pm - no problem, was only 15 miles, surely that wouldn't be a problem? Anyway, as I began my afternoon presentation at 2.35pm.......Honestly, London is supposed to be one of the finest cities in the world, yet to travel 15 miles took me over 2 hours and I had to pay £8 for the privilege - Madness! Boris, I can't help thinking you've got your work cut out!!