Tracks

Today I went across to Northallerton for a meeting with a new client. The drive over was unnecessarily stressful as the journey that Google Maps had said would take an hour and fifty minutes turned out to be two hours and ten minutes according to the satnav. Consequently, when I set off, my eta was three minutes before the meeting was due to start.

For the first hour of the journey, I managed to keep my arrival time *just* before 10am but then, as I got closer, the arrival time started to become earlier and earlier, until I started to get quite irritated that I could, in fact, have stopped for a coffee on the way over.

The meeting itself was fine. Lovely people for a start. And we had coffee and scones around half-eleven, followed by delicious and generous lunch later on.

I headed off around three-thirty and this time, as I was heading home to Kirkby Lonsdale, the satnav took me west on the A684. What a beautiful road! Loads of wonderful scenery punctuated by pretty little towns that made me want to pull over, buy a pint and sit in front of the pub, enjoying the sunshine and the greens and cottages.

At one point I drove over a level crossing. I can never resist slowing down and looking along the tracks, those long corridors laid through the landscape. This one made me do a double-take as it was all overgrown. I drove on a bit, turned 'round and came back to take the photo. If I'd had more time, I might have succumbed to the urge to walk a little way along it. On the other hand, the level crossing appeared to still be in use, so maybe it's just as well that I had a governors meeting to get back for.