Saturday 4 August 2012

Spreading joy on the M25

Let's be honest, it could do with it.
Returning from Wales yesterday afternoon by car, the journey took me along the M25 (anti-clockwise past Heathrow if you care, but I'm guessing you don't). The traffic was its usual stop-start along the temporary speed limits. It seems to me that the traffic flows until the temporary speed restrictions are in use, but perhaps that's just me.
Lanes in both directions crawled along for miles, most of us with better places to be on a Friday afternoon which crept into Friday evening without too much effort.
As we made our way along the outside lane, one of the passengers in the Golf VW in front of our car opened his window and began to wave at those static on the clockwise carriageway. He waved at about fifty or so people until a concrete barrier stopped his good cheer.
Hardly anyone waved back. A few looked the other way. Some smiled that embarrassed smile. Some were clearly just humouring him.
I'm not sure why that was. It was making me laugh but then being stuck in traffic with the fumes getting too much may have made me delirious. Thing is, we were on the M25 for a considerably long time but the fella in front waving is just about all I recall.
Who'd have thought that the M25 could be so amusing? But before you all rush there giving the Edinburgh Festival a run for its money, bear in mind I usually start drinking at 7pm and the sun was well and truly over the yardarm.

2 comments:

  1. I remember when I went backpacking round East Africa a few years ago, every time you passed a village the locals would wave at you and give you a friendly smile as you drove past, and it was a really nice tradition.

    But in this country we're too reserved and not as friendly as we should be sometimes.

    I'm like you though, and if someone was waving in a traffic jam then it would probably have amused me as well.

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  2. Thanks Charles. Not just me and my humour I'm glad to know. People are probably much friendlier in East Africa than stuck in traffic on the M25.

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