What is it with sat-navs?

I have a love/hate relationship with my sat-nav; they are tremendously useful devices, but they are also massively frustrating.

I had a couple of run-ins with mine on the drive down to Bourg-Saint-Maurice to stay with Lucy and Sam.

We had to make a really early start (up at 2am and leave at 3am) to catch a 6.30am ferry from Dover to Calais, so I wasn't in the best of humours at that time of day. First problem was the M11, which signs on the A1 said was closed, so I had to choose an alternative route. I guess I could have stopped and reprogrammed the sat-nav, but I knew the next fastest route would be to carry on down the A1 and pick up the M25 at South Mimms.

I knew that, but the old sat-nav kept nagging me to turn off, do a U-turn, get myself towards the M11. I can't blame it for that, but we were past Biggleswade before the stupid thing gave up and got on the right track.

It was a miserable journey, raining steadily almost all the way. It has been a very wet January (the wettest on record in some parts of the UK). We got to the ferry port just before 6am and so were in plenty of time. Our ferry was also late due to the poor weather, so we need not have hurried quite so much.

I knew that me and the sat-nav would have a disagreement when we got into France. It is determined to take us to Bourg-Saint-Maurice via the Jura towards Geneva and then down into Annecy. That's a really long dog leg on the map and the roads are much slower.

Perversely, on the way back, the sat-nav takes you a different route (the route I'd like to go) which is via the Lyon ring round. That way, the journey takes eight-and-a-half hours compared to 10 hours via the Jura and Annecy. Basically, you can set the cruise control at 80mph as you leave Calais and switch it off at Chambery. I exaggerate, of course, but it is essentially two fast autoroutes to Lyon and then a fast run to Chambery, decent road to Albertville followed by mountain roads to Moutiers and Bourg. It's really easy and that's the way the sat-nav likes to come back.

So why, does it always want to go almost to the Swiss border and add hours to your outward journey? This time I was ready for it. As we got to Dijon, it said turn off; I kept going and it recalculated. No giving up, it wanted me off at the next exit with an even slower route nationale way back towards Geneva.

This man was not for turning, but it kept wanting me to turn for another couple of exits (perhaps 30 miles closer to Lyon). Then, all of a sudden, it saw the light, knocked 50 miles off the target and took me round the Lyon ring round.

We made really good time and got to Sam and Lucy's chalet at about 6pm. It was not quite dark and we'd also dodged some forecast snow, so a good run.

Sky holiday day 8 - ski holiday day 8 - journey home

We were a little nervous about the journey home as the trip down had taken considerably longer that we’d envisaged.

We decided on a 4.30am start and to ensure that the sat-nav didn’t try to take us through Paris as it had last year.

I did the first shift behind the wheel and it wasn’t a happy session to start with. Traffic was light, but we got stuck behind some slow French drivers (yes, such a thing exists) and then it was quite foggy in places which meant I had to keep a check on speed.

After Lyon, and with the sun coming up, the mist cleared and I was able to set the cruise control at 80mph and gain some time. Average speed rose quickly and we were well on the way by the time Sam took over. We managed to thwart the sat-nav’s evil plans for a trip around the Paris ring road and arrived in Calais over an hour ahead of our ferry check-in time.

There had been some mind games with the sat-nav. It was determined we should skirt Paris and when we ignored the first turning, it calculated a longer drive time and laid plans for us to turn off on the next. Ignoring that made it recalculate again, but it was determined that Paris was the best route and it recalculated an extended journey time based on us still heading through Paris. That caused us to have, at one stage, a journey time that meant we’d miss our ferry. We stuck to our guns and once the sat-nav was certain there was no chance of going via Paris, it chopped a couple of hours off the journey time. It was a seminal moment - I’d been right and it had been wrong. A humble apology would have been nice, but all I got was a grudging recalculation.

P&O Ferries got major future credit by letting us on an earlier ferry without additional payment, so we’d be home much earlier. It was an uneventful crossing, but the ferry was full of old people (very old people) who seemed to be having much difficulty in getting about. I was feeling quite gloomy about lots of things.

Tom and Hannah’s marriage break-up was obviously prime among these; I was worried about Tom and also upset for Hannah. Margaret had taken it badly (of course) and had also been disappointed not to come on the ski holiday because Gravel was poorly. On top of everything, she was still worried about Gravel who was now on medication for hyperthyroidism, but still not showing many signs of improvement. All-in-all, I couldn’t wait to be home.

There was one bit of bright news in all of this worry and that was that Max had been offered a job at Dulwich College, one of the UK’s top private schools. Every cloud ...

Skiing holiday - the journey home

I set my alarm for 3am to give me chance to have a cup of tea and not be rushing around too much. I think I'm so used to early mornings with my commute, that it's really not too much of a chore. Margaret's dad always got up before 6am (the result of years of early starts when he worked on farms) and was always ready for bed at 9pm. It didn't make him healthy, wealthy or wise, but you do get into a routine that's hard to break. Even when I'm on holiday, I find myself awake at 6am.


We got the car packed and everywhere tidied up for a prompt departure and Sam took first turn at the wheel. I think he was a bit sad at the holiday ending and it is also a bit depressing starting that early. Still, traffic was light and we were making good time - so good that Sam got flashed by a speed camera (here's hoping that he won't get a ticket).


I swapped with him at the first petrol stop after about 100 miles and Sam had a snooze while I drove. It was obvious that the sat-nav was taking us back a different route and Lucy said it often did. It had found three different routes back from Nat and Tibor's. I stuck with it as it was still showing a respectable arrival time in Calais, but I would have taken a different autoroute (the one we came down on in fact). I got more and more concerned as we got closer and closer to Paris until, in the end, we could see the Eifel Tower and the Sacre Cour. Those south-east suburbs of Paris are bloody depressing, thank heavens I don't live there. How can the centre of Paris be so beautiful and the suburbs so grim?


Eventually, we hit the Boulevard Periphique for about 10 miles and took the A1 for Lille past Charles de Gaulle airport and Gonesse, where we stayed years ago when Tom and Sam were quite small. The idea was that we'd get the train into Paris, but there was a French rail strike that week, so we visited Versailles instead. That's definitely not the route I would have chosen - all the way up the Autoroute de Sol to Paris then A1 to Lille and Calais. We changed driver at 310 miles (quite a stint, but easy driving) and Sam finished off the last leg into Calais, where we were able to get an earlier ferry.


His sat-nav was definitely having a laugh - when we got off the ferry in Dover and I set off for the M2 to London (a route I've done lots of times), the sat-nav wanted me to turn around and go via Canterbury! I can't say too much because we bought him the sat-nav for his birthday. We were back in London just after 4pm (12 hours door-to-door, or 13 if you count the clock change). I was able to get the 4.28 back to Peterborough from Finsbury Park and was home about 6pm. It was definitely worth setting off early, we didn't hit any traffic to talk about and it might even be worth going overnight another year.


Nice to see Margaret, Gravel and Holly again and I was back in time to see the last bit of light before a nice supper and a gin and tonic. I bought two litre-bottles of Bombay Sapphire gin on the ferry (£28 for the two) and it really does make a superior G&T. So much so that I had to have another to make sure.