Chris Rea’s “Driving Home For Christmas” is currently being played in shops, supermarkets and on the radio.
The idea for his considerably less jaunty driving song came to Chris while gridlocked in traffic on the M25.
However, a friend of mine claims the M5 South is the real ‘Road To Hell’ after he and his wife were stuck – along with thousands of others – in Friday afternoon traffic for six hours, after a lorry fire closed two lanes.
They were headed to a Somerset hotel that’s part of a chain of resorts that rhyme with Horner Pleasure.
The journey time from their south Wales home normally takes two hours. Knowing there’d been delays, they didn’t leave until 3pm to give the traffic time to clear.
Unfortunately, they hit the traffic at the Clevedon junction, crawled along for an hour, then came to a dead stop.
Optimistically, his wife remarked “Well, at least it’s not raining!”, just before the Heavens opened.
An hour later, when they still hadn’t moved, she remarked, “Well, at least it’s still daylight”, just before it got dark.
They started to move very slowly around 7.30pm and, although they needed a comfort stop, the long queue into Sedgemoor services was at a standstill.
They eventually got off the M5 around 9.30pm, but the A358 was so poorly lit they couldn’t read any signs.
Their phone sat nav proved useless, as first it sent them into an industrial estate and then up, what my friend described as ‘the narrowest, scariest country lane I’ve ever travelled down’.
Now hopelessly lost, they made a 10-point turn and, thanks to a lucky encounter with two helpful locals who pointed them to the right road, they arrived at their hotel at 11pm. The kitchens were closed and the entertainment had long finished.
Feeling shattered, they had a quick nightcap in their room and swore they’d never travel the road to Hell again – then realised that, in order to get home on Monday, they’d have to.
I’d tell you what happened on their return journey, but you, like them, have suffered enough!