“Remember, you only need one car,” said the Reiki healer as I stuck out my thumb once more. 10 hours, 5 cars and 1 train ride after I set out from Cromer in North Norfolk, I made it to Leeds.
In a fit of pique at the price of travel, and in a bid to lessen my impact on the environment, I decided to resort to the traditional traveller’s favoured mode of transport: hitch-hiking. It had been some time since I had last lingered on a street corner flourishing a card-board sign, but a number of factors had culminated in a well-reasoned desire to test the temperament of the nation once more.
An emailed invitation had arrived in a millisecond proposing a leaving party in Leeds, significantly less than a millisecond’s travelling time away. An old friend was emigrating; to Australia. As such, the request for people to journey to Leeds was put in perspective. It was an awful lot closer up there than down under.
By train there was a selection of extremely cheap tickets, none of which remained available. By bus a cheap option existed, but lacked a direct route and required a painstaking series of changes and lengthy waiting periods in some the nation’s less salubrious bus stations.
Driving was, of course, an option. However, a five hour journey each way, alone, seemed not only highly uneconomical, unproductive and upsetting for the environmentalist lobby, it would also have deprived my better half of transport and open domestic arguments that (in the short term at least) the worst threats of global warming could never compete with.
And so, with summer finally in bloom, the decision was taken not to fall prey to the school holiday price hikes, and instead to put my faith in the people of these fair isles.
Within five minutes of brandishing my carefully drawn plea on the outskirts of Cromer, “Anywhere closer to Leeds”, the first lift was proffered. It was a short hop to Holt, a mere 15 minutes drive, but it was psychologically the most important ride of the day.
The second ride, from Holt to Fakenham took far longer to materialise but by then the journey had begun. Any devils of doubt could be countered by the fact that one lift had already been granted, that a complete stranger had seen fit to stop and offer a ride to his fellow man.
Then it started to rain. The devils became restless. 40 minutes past. The devils reminded me that I was still within calling distance of the aforementioned other half. There was still time to gracefully bow out citing any number of entirely reasonable excuses; the weather, health, general safety, and missing any number of sporting events on the telly. But then, just as the rain drops appeared to be gathering momentum and size, a car slowed to a halt and a cheery couple (teachers, a day into their summer break) took pity and pulled over.
From Fakenham it was 20 miles to Kings Lynn; 20 miles to the edge of Norfolk. “I’m headed to Leeds” I would explain to passing North Norfolk locals. “Leeds!” they responded, as if Holland would have been a far more sensible suggestion. The truth is it is probably closer.
My next saviour was a Reiki healer, headed not just to Kings Lynn but far beyond it to one of middle England’s main arteries, the A1. From there I would be home dry; home dry that is if I hadn’t left my umbrella in his car.
As much as I sought to visualise my next lift, putting into practise my impromptu Reiki teaching, it failed to materialise for a very long time. There were plenty of smiles and the odd honk from the vehicles departing the A1 services at which I had been dropped, but no lift.
Shortly after relinquishing visualisation and relocating to the slightly more precarious, but statistically preferable, slip-road to the north-bound carriageway, I struck gold again. It was another short hop but an immense morale booster. Unfortunately it also underlined an important rule of hitching: Think carefully before trading a good position for an unknown position a few miles further on.
Generally speaking “a good position”, as opposed to “a pickle”, is a place where there are plenty of cars heading in your direction, that can see you early, and have time and space to pull over. “A pickle” includes most slip roads (on which cars accelerate and there is often little room to pull over safely).
When salvation finally came the sun was low in the sky, the clouds were darkening again and the irony of leaving my protective umbrella in the healer’s car was no longer entertaining. “Can drop you in Grantham, at the station,” said the white van man. “It’s not far at all on the train to Leeds if you’re prepared to spend a bit of money; and it’s about to piss it down.”
And so my resolve crumbled. I gave up at Grantham and caught the train to Leeds in time for a curry and copious quantities of Cobra. I had had five lifts and covered many miles. I had tested the water again and found it warm, but I had been on the road for seven hours and my objective was the send-off in Leeds, not a compulsive desire to hitch all the way come hell or high water. Hitching should always remain an additional option as opposed to a stubborn obsession.
My jaunt had saved me a significant amount of money and reduced my impact on the environment to a bottle of Sprite and a Magnum ice cream (Peterborough Services has its highlights). I had enjoyed the company of a number of strangers and learnt about the Montessori method of teaching, discussed the prospect of emigrating (always high on the agenda when the sky appears to be falling in), been schooled in the basics of Reiki healing and met the founder of a new classic-car hire business.
As for the journey home; don’t ask.
