More Good than Bad

Good News: Decide to buy a sofa bed from IKEA
Bad News: Nearest branch is in Bristol (but we decide we can just about do it in the day)
GN: Set off in sunshine at 9am on Friday morning
BN: Traffic very slow between home and motorway
GN: IKEA easy to find and by happy timing able to meet friend over from Oz for lunch before he has to head to Heathrow to catch his flight home
BN: Leave IKEA at rush-hour so takes an hour to drive a few hundred yards through near gridlock to pick up five packages containing sofa bed
GN: Despite fears, manage to accommodate all the huge packages in back of Ford Galaxy.
BN: Only achieved by pushing my passenger seat as far forward as possible, and making the back vertical
More BN: The motorway is all but gridlocked and stationary - rush hour, of course PLUS warning signs flashing notice of 90-minute delays between J19 and J20 of the M5
GN: Forewarned, we pull off at Cribbs Causeways for a leg-stretch, comfort break, etc. to allow things to speed up (we hoped)
BN: Didn't wait long enough; return to Mway and within minutes back at crawling pace. New signs now warning 'Accident'
GN: Eventually (around the time we should have been home), reach Junction 20, by which time no signs of accident in evidence. Soon bowling along, and happy that being delayed is better than being in the accident
BN: Decide to pull into services at Collumpton for comfort break plus leg-and-back-stretch - but as soon as we set off again, a warning light appears on dashboard and all power disappears from the automatic drive - a problem with transmission
GN: We broke down on the slip road, rather than the hard shoulder so safe
BN: By now there is a thick frost developing - we wrap up well to retain body heat
GN: The recovery man arrives in under 30 minutes and tows us home. We arrive just after 23:00 hours. Exhausted, but home
BN: Get to bed well after midnight. Get around four hours' sleep before needing to be up and emptying the car in readiness for breakdown service to come and tow it on its last leg to the garage
GN: The parcels are so big, we can only take them round the side of our bungalow, and leave them in the garden but it isn't raining. Manage to get them all indoors before early pm showers.

All this explains why this is a back-blip, and overspills from Friday into Saturday! Good news: It's Strictly tonight (Saturday) and we will be partaking of wine later! (PS In my collage, note the Severn Bridge, the cute little cloud that hovered alone in the blue sky of morning, and the amazingly large haystack being carried by a huge lorry in the dark of evening.)