The comfort and the joy of feeling lost

[venta]

Last week, I embarked on a brave voyage. I'd bought myself a bulky, heavy present on eBay and rather than paying the postage (and, more importantly, risking the PO drop-kicking the thing and breaking it) I elected to go and collect it. It was in London, so I was expecting to catch the tube to visit it. Except it was living in the far reaches of East London, and its owner cited it as rather bulky for carrying any distance. Which meant I drove.

If you drop me in the middle of nowhere with an OS map (and possibly a compass), I'm fine. If I have an street map I'll happily walk myself through the most unfamiliar of cities. Put me in a car however - even if I'm a mapreading passenger - and all navigational ability immediately leaves me. I'm not quite sure why this is; possibly just the lack of thinking time you have at a motorway junction compared to being able to pause briefly on foot. However, having planned myself a route I elected on a solo mission rather than taking a navigator. Partly because it was more convenient than collecting one, but also because I'm aware that my fear of navigation has actually been making my navigation worse of late. It was a simple enough route, I ought to take it on.

I've learnt a lot about route-planning since I first got a car. The most important rule is that printing directions from your internet mapping site of preference is not good enough. The route it chooses might be stupid and if you get lost, you have no way of getting back on track. If you're driving through a town, the directions may be misleading, or actively wrong. And the style of directions is, if you're driving at the same time, hard to read. Instead, I planned my own route using a road atlas and the trusty London A-to-Z I found under a tube seat some years ago. A-to-Zs are brilliant, and indispensable for through-town driving. Not least because, if you're hopelessly lost, you can always find a street name and use the index.

Following the suggestions of the eBay seller, I headed round the M25 to the M11 and down to the Blackwall tunnel. Driving down the M11 is a pleasant experience; despite feeling like you're miles away from "real" London, you suddenly find yourself presented with a surprisingly close up view of Canary Wharf and then, moments later, a proper London skyline including the Gherkin.

My journey went somewhat surprisingly to plan, only hitting a slight hitch because the New Cross area likes hiding its street names and I missed my turning owing to uncertainty. However, A-to-Z to the rescue! A quick glimpse showed that there was a strange one-way triangle-about up ahead which gave me an opportunity to turn round and take a second chance at my turning.

I did have a scary moment turning onto the A2. Planning my route, I'd noted that I had to turn right onto it. When the junction arrived, however, the two options were presented as continuing along the road I was on, or taking a slip road left. Neither was a right, nor could I see which way the road bent after the slip road. The signs offered me A2 to Central London, or A2 to Dover. To the competent, this is obvious. To me, it is exactly the sort of thing which panics me when driving. I am, however, learning. Let's see, I'm going.... which way ? I've just crossed the river, I must be going broadly south. So the city centre is west, and Dover is mostly east. So, to turn right I must go west - towards the city, which is the left slip road.

Having collected my present, I leapt back into the car in triumph. The journey back would be more familiar, and (since it was late enough to risk the North Circular rather than the M25) involved roads I know rather better; I enjoyed the rest of my drive. People were flying giant, colourful kites over Blackheath, and the sky had turned a glowing, golden orange behind the Millennium Dome O2 Centre. By the time I reached the North Circ., the sky had darkened to a dusky purple with banners of grey cloud streaked across the tower blocks. My talismanic A-to-Z and I laughed at Staples Corner - thwarting its attempts to throw us onto the wrong road - and sped off into the night.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

A lot of places don't seem to have road signs in useful places, like the ends of roads. I think somebody may have stolen them. Ten years ago Paisley didn't have any at all.

I am always confused as to how anybody can be bad at navigating as a passenger in a car, because I have been doing it for years. I am sorely annoyed about the invention of GPS direction-giving computers, because it makes my usefulness as a passenger obsolete.

The only living boy in New Cross

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Oh, if I'd known you were in East London, I'd have offered you dinner or something!

Re: The only living boy in New Cross

[venta.livejournal.com]

One kudo for spotting Carter.

And given the reputations of your cooking, if you offer me dinner I'll come to East London :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think my bad-at-navigating-in-a-car originally stems from trying to navigate other people (when I was a non-driver) across complicated city centres with only a road atlas. That's actually quite a challenge.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

If there are no one way systems or small roads marked on, that's a nightmare! Last week I had to direct the rail replacement bus to Stevenage station. There are no signs in Stevenage, I was guessing the whole way.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Simon's Shiny New Car has a built-in compass as an LED display above the rear-view mirror, so you always know which way you're heading!

[kate-r.livejournal.com]

I recall one time navigating the North Circular and finding that most of the useful signposts had been hidden behind trees and other such barriers!

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Apologies if it's too personal a question - but what was the present?

</nosy>

[uitlander]

The funny thing about Staples corner, is that it was called that years before they plonked a giant 'Staples' in one of the retail parks on it. I want to know why the Welsh Harp (just up the Edgware Road from it) is called that.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Not at all :)

It was an overlocker - a model that's no longer on the market, but is broadly speaking like this one (http://www.elna.us/en/products/overlocks/344/).

Now I'm just waiting for a further eBay purchase of some thread for it to arrive - it proved more difficult than expected to buy it in shops. I think this is the grown up equivalent of being given a toy which doesn't come with batteries :)

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

I hate that. *gnashes teeth in annoyance*

[venta.livejournal.com]

I happened to find this out the other day. The "Welsh Harp Open Space" (=green bit near Brent Reservoir) is so named because in the days when Victorians headed out of the city to frolic there, there was a large and commodious public house (with skittle alley, and space for an orchestra) called The Welsh Harp on the site.

ChrisC had learned from Wikipedia that the name was from the shape of the "open space", but (a) signs explaining about the existence of the pub and (b) casual observation of the shape of the open space suggest that this is bollocks.