Late for my first Radio Interview

I set off in what seemed like amply good time, just after 9am, to drive to Lincoln for my first live radio interview on BBC Radio Lincolnshire, scheduled for 11am. Joining the A1 at Burghley House, my heart sank, as I saw the queue, and the inevitability of being part of it. We crawled our way to the next junction, which took ten minutes (about 1 mile). Luckily I know the way across all the little windy country lines to get across to the A15 - the alternative route to Lincoln. However, I was now cutting it fine. I thought I could still make it in time, but the A15 is not a great road for overtaking and I got stuck behind a van with 'Weee doesn't have to cost the earth: The UK's largest weee recycler' emblazened on the back. I found this very distracting, as I was trying to work out what 'weee' means. I have since been put straight on this by a facebook friend - it means 'Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment', which seems to be a very long winding acronym - why bother with Electronic as well as Electrical? And why is it not capitalised? Anyway, the van very unhelpfully did not pull over to let me past, and so we screeched into the car park at the studio at 11am - the exact time I was meant to be on air. My lateness meant that my interview was shorter than planned, but everyone was very nice about it, and the first thing I heard when I walked in was the traffic news confirming that there had been a major accident on the A1 - the cause of my delay.

Melvyn was absolutely delightful and put me at my ease. He even made a joke out of my faux pas - my phone went off in the middle of the interview. I had not had time to think about turning it off as I was so late. Whoops! The text was from my colleague Claire saying 'Brilliant interview''. Oh, the irony!

It seemed to go so quickly and I was out in the sunlight again, and trotted off into town to find my daughters. Lincoln has become our favourite shopping town. All the High Street shops are quite compactly and conveniently located near each other, and then up the hill are the lanes of quirky independent stores and lovely tea rooms. Yesterday I stopped for a rest at 'The Rest', where the large latte really was very large indeed! My daughter's joined me, and then I was dragged around the sort of shops they like (but I hate) for several hours, intersected by a trip to Carluccios. As far as I know, this is the only place you can get pasta crisps, which are just the best snack ever invented. I gather from their tweet to me yesterday that they were invented by their chefs and are cooked in-house. 

The journey home was, of course, without incident. Lesson learnt - expect the worst and allow treble time to get to your destination if you have a deadline!

You can listen again for the next 6 days to my interview. Here is the link. The interview starts 02:13 hours into the programme.

An extremely large latte at 'The Rest'

Pasta Crisps at Carluccios