There are very few times in life that you can simply put your foot down and leave it there. As a driver it happens on occasion. As a husband hardly ever. But today I experienced such a moment of sublime exaltation as I pulled onto the A1 just south of Leeds.

Leaving Yorkshire is always a wonderful moment (I realise that ‘technically’ we were still there and would be for 50 odd miles more, but psychologically the road home is ‘no-man’s-land’ and thus unaffiliated and can be considered part of ‘home’).

There’s a long ‘on-ramp’, downhill, leading onto the main motorway, so we came off the roundabout and I hit the pedal. Probably started at about 30 mph and by the time I got to the motorway I was kissing 100 and g-forces were pulling on my face and it felt wonderful. Not totally convinced Mel was enjoying it quite as much as I eased onto the fast lane, traffic light but there were cars enough. I’d slowed down a bit by then, in the interest of license retention, so was doing no more than the car in front (doh), about 80. When the car in front of him hit the central reservation. Just kind’a ‘bounced off’ it.

And the world went into ‘bullet time’. I was Neo (I decided in a hurry) as the car, a black BMW bounced off the metal wall and lurched over to the left, into the middle lane. Where a little black car was sitting. The driver of this little car was alert and swerved instantly to his left where, on the slow lane was… fortunately nothing. A gap in which he could veer out of the danger of the bouncing beemer.

Its amazing how fast your mind works at such times. I’d already calculated the probability of the BMW hitting the little black car, knocking it into a Skoda, which flipped over, as ya do, rolling into another car… I saw a motorway pile-up. Because it just becomes a pin-ball thing with cars, all travelling at 70 or so, being pushed, banged and shunted around. And the net result is: we all die.

However, the evasive action of the little black car, coupled with the BMW driver managing to get his vehicle straight once more, meant it never played out that way. Thank fucking Christ.

The Beemer was driven by an elderly man who, I presume may have fallen asleep at the wheel. If he’d been a younger person I’d have presumed phone usage or stereo changeage, but old = sleep. Normally. I needed a nap myself after that.

But I learned a valuable lesson from that ‘near miss’. Cars moving fast are potentially dangerous projectiles in certain circumstances. So the best thing you can do is drive faster than everyone else and GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY!!!

I don’t do football these days. Don’t need to. I have Lila. And she’s spectacular and reliable and doesn’t CONCEDE STUPID GOALS IN THE 92ND MINUTE!!!!

Happy bank holiday Monday

A xxxx