To Liverpool again - a foggy journey

Off to Liverpool today.  Thom was off school today and had agreed to do someone else's paper round to earn some extra cash - good lad! Sara made me a breakfast roll of bacon and fried egg and I spent most of the morning getting ready for the few days away "up north".  I dealt with last minute paperwork and packed - taking two suitcases with me - one packed with clothes and the other my "mobile office".  As I am leading and preaching at West Dean next Sunday I took quite a few theological books to help me put together the service and write my sermon - on the theme of Malachi. I eventually left the house at 12.30 p.m. and took the normal route via Swindon, Gloucester, Birmingham, Wolverhampton along the motorway.  At Stafford I started to hit really heavy traffic and it was stop-start all the way to Stoke where I turned off and took the A500 through the city centre.  Attempting to rejoin the M6 at Junction 16, I encountered thick choking fog - I say choking because there was the most awful smell of sulphur in the air which permeated my car's air-conditioning system and sucked it in producing a really horrible acrid taste in my mouth.  The fog was very widespread and the car radio traffic announcements from as far afield as Sheffield and Lancashire indicated its extent.  It was impossible to get on to the M6 and so I took the single carriageway road towards Nantwich and with the aid of my car's SatNav negotiated my way along some fairly minor roads to Runcorn and into Liverpool over the Mersey Bridge.  In fact, this significantly reduced the mileage to Liverpool but did mean I arrived here about an hour later than scheduled.  I found out later, on the radio that I in fact saved time as well because the M6 was pretty well jammed the whole way to Lymm and beyond and the M56 to Runcorn was blocked by an accident and it was taking 84 minutes (how precise is that?) from the M6 to the Runcorn turn-off.  On arrival at Liverpool the fog had cleared and I arrived at my friend Malcolm's at about 6.10 p.m. - the journey had taken about five and a half hours which, considering the problems, wasn't too bad.  Tonight we walked along the park road to Steve's where we bought and shared one of their excellent Singapore Chow Meins and spend a pleasant evening sitting and chatting over a few drinks (we decided not to go to the pub) and discussing world events.  To bed at 2 a.m.!