Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

That’s it, summer is well and truly over. The young have returned to school and parents are variously heaving sighs of relief or fretting about those youngsters starting new scholastic adventures.

I no longer have children of school age and my grandchildren have a way to go before they join the throng of students. Even so, I am perfectly well aware that the school term has begun because the roads are a nightmare.

The five mile drive to work has taken me around ten minutes, every day for the past six weeks. Rush hour has been a misnomer…it has been more of a gentle meander on roads that were a pleasure to drive. Today it took half an hour and was a very different story.

Thirty minutes may not be bad in terms of a commute, but nose to tail traffic crawling at snail’s pace for miles makes it unpleasant…