Picking My Daughter Up From Heathrow: It Was Eventful

On Sunday just gone my daughter E arrived home from her three week placement in Uganda as part of her university course studying child nursing.

Her flight was due to land at 9.05pm. So I decided to leave at around 5pm in case I encountered any traffic. Thankfully I had some company for the journey my eldest daughter, J, decided to come along.

The decision to leave earlier worked out just right. We hit grid lock when we were near Swindon which although wasn’t a long delay, was about 45 minutes before we got going again.

We had to stop just near a slip road joining the motorway and both of us were shocked to see people reversing back up the slip road to get off the motorway, total madness! I was amazed it didn’t result in another accident.

We eventually arrived around 8.30pm which actually happened to be perfect timing. We waited around and eventually around 9.50pm my daughter emerged from the security area. The relief to see her was huge and she was in one piece and also had two suitcases which was a bonus considering on the outward journey her luggage was lost. That moment, which will stay with me forever, I gave her a big hug and didn’t realise until that moment how much I had missed her for the last three weeks.

We got back to the car just after 10pm and set off on our two hour journey back home although at the time we didn’t know it was going to take four hours.

We got to the junction around the Swindon area and the traffic appeared to be getting much heavier which seemed unusual considering the time of night. Then we saw a sign saying that there had been an accident. Then the traffic came to a halt and we were gridlocked on the M4. It was a total and complete standstill in front of us and building up incredibly quickly behind us.

We were in for a long wait. My eldest daughter, J, and I did start to chuckle at our situation and actually thought it was quite funny that we were standing on the M4 outside lane which was certainly a first for us both.

We are both big fans of The Walking Dead and as it was pitch dark on the motorway both of us started talking that if there was a zombie invasion at this moment what would we do and exactly where we would go. We surveyed the area the area and decided that across the carriageway was a definite no, as it was woodland and we could easily be taken there.

So we decided that we would rip off the roof racks on my car to use as weapons and then jump from car to truck and finally end up on a bus to defend ourselves from the zombie apocalypse. This is, I know a totally crazy conversation, but we were serious for a split second.

Back to reality now though, and my daughter needed a wee. I can’t imagine this will happen in a hurry again in her life, but she crouched down between the two doors on my car and she had a wee on the M4. That’s now her claim to fame having a wee on the fast lane of the M4. Haha!

We did finally start moving again around an hour and a half later. Thank goodness it was getting late and we arrived home around 2am.

There is of course a serious lesson that is to be learnt from my long journey home from Heathrow. In a split second driving on the motorway your life and family’s life could be changed forever, accidents are generally not anybody’s fault and they can happen by the simplest of mistakes, a moments distraction or tiredness. I saw many occasions of undertaking on the motorway this particular evening and crazy driving at high speed. Sometimes it stuns me how little regard people hold for other drivers.

There was a sad part to the accident as a person lost their life and it made think how fragile life is and how you never know what’s around the corner, but I guess if we did know we would be walking around on egg shells all our lives.

The experience of the night taught me to be more careful and respect other drivers and more importantly respect speed whilst driving on the motorway, because in a blink of an eye everything could be changed forever.