Your journey to work?

Finnforest wrote: I used to find the act of traveling pleasurable but these days I'd be pretty happy to be able to "beam" places.  That would be liberating to a new degree.

 

 

When I lived close to the factory I used to walk to work, now we've downscaled the factory to offices and I've moved out of town, I drive the 5 miles to work each day - it's too short to be of any bother and not long enough to be interesting. Several times a year I have to travel the 200 miles to our factory in Norwich.

 

When I was a kid that region of Eastern England was our regular holiday location and I have fond memories of loading up my Dad's Austin A35 (a van with windows) with camping gear and setting off for the Norfolk coast, along the way we'd pass through quaint English villages occasionally stopping at one of their pubs for refreshment (a bottle of Vimto and a packet of crisps in the car for us kids who weren't allowed in the pub in those days) or we'd call-in at one of the many small transport cafés for a late breakfast; sometimes we'd stop at  Newmarket racecourse to watch them training horses along side the road, or at Snetterton racetrack where we could see Lotus running car test and every year we'd stop at a roadside grave of an unnamed Gypsy child where Dad would get us to pick wild flowers to lay on the grave. The Austin didn't have a car radio, Dad rigged up a Dansette "111"  transistor radio plugged into a 12 foot whip aerial that had once graced an army tank so we could sing along to The Beatles and The Beach Boys on the journey. On summer hols in 1966 we were flagged down by a Norfolk policeman - he said there was nothing wrong but couldn't help noticing the 4-yard tank aerial bolted between front and back bumper of the car and ask us if we knew the football score - we spent the next hour parked by the roadside with him, listening to the World Cup final and drinking tea made on our camping stove before continuing our journey.

 

Now I travel the same road a dozen times a year and it has become the most boring journey imaginable: the roads are now straight, flat and featureless; all the villages (bar one) have been "bypassed" in the name of progress - soon that village too will be just a signpost off a new stretch of road; to find the last remaining transport café (the Comfort Café at Fourwentways) you have to leave the main road to discover the original route of the A11 trunk road.

 

I tire of this journey very quickly such that an hour into the return trip I wish there was a warm friendly button on the dashboard marked "HOME" that I could press and be instantly transported to my drive.

How I envy those of you who work from home, although I wonder if I would have the required willpower and discipline.