Green and Pleasant Tarmac

The drive to and from Tunbridge Wells for Fiona and Rob's Wedding on Saturday was a good reminder of what Britain is to the majority. Drivers who vote Conservative, shop in Bluewater and watch football. whilst I condone that to a degree, it just reminds me why popular culture means so little to me. The wedding, on the other-hand, was a true British classic - a wonderful couple in a stunning, sunlit setting.

I drive rarely, my naivety highlighted by the tickets I get almost every time I pick up some car keys. (paid fines litter my receipt pile.) We headed down toward the M6, a fine drive through the Scottish Borders where the tarmac cuts through the now bright green hills and were reminded of the population differences as soon as we neared Lancaster. Figures quoted in the press on the amount carbon we produce, and how many cars are on the road are kind of hard to rationalise until you hit proper the urban areas.

The 'central belt' of Scotland is a kind of Midlands lite and bears no resemblance to the M25 whatsoever. (How it must feel for a Hebridean to witness this as an introduction to the mainland.) The election maps were a recent reminder of how dense the population is further south yet consistently a lush, green and rolling view would be present at the side of the road. Though lanes and lanes of cars stop-start near Birmingham like a huge, mechanical caterpillar, I am surprised at how relaxed everyone's driving is compared to ten years ago. It is as if the constant pouring onto roads of more cars - and the subsequent pace of journey - has been accepted. (Perhaps I've calmed down as a person too.) Now, like in Italy or Germany, people will generally move out the way of serious drivers. it's as civilised as such a desperately ugly pursuit can be.

We hit the M25 at rush hour after swapping a fiver to whizz past Birmingham. (Ironically it's now a place on my 'to-go' list.) The circular is a vast and vaporous place. The pace is literally pedestrian. I am surprised to see almost no housing for the whole southern trip - just double-decker jumbo-jets hovering over the tarmac, their friends visibly queueing in the sky to the west with a look of second world war about them. Stopping in Surrey for the evening was bliss - great weather, big house with grounds and IPA in the fridge of the hotel. We headed early the next day and joined the circular again, a quick journey to Kent. Even Saturday morning was relatively busy - cars everywhere. I always maintain a respect for bikes and trains but this helps cement my beliefs.

Being British and bereft of daylight for so much of the year, the radiance of summer often feels like a hallucination - the 2 days a week it comes between May and September. It has a dreamy quality in the same way the memory of a foreign holiday to the Mediterranean always feels like you had been transported to an unreal place. The south of England had that aura to it as we travelled across it - I just wish I had been on a bike, surrounded by the noise of birds and crickets.