It’s a long drive to Scotland – especially for this old fella. More than 500 miles and 8 hours on the road (not including any stops) from my front door to Inverness, the official start of the NC500.
Long gone are the days when I would do that in one hop, so I thought I’d try the Tebay Services Hotel on the M6. Been to the services many times before on my work travels, but never stayed overnight. This would also be my first foray into the real world of COVID-secure establishments, so interesting to see what I would find.
The travelling weather was atrocious, not helped by a mega-accident on the M6 near Preston. I decided to come off at an earlier junction and go through Preston, rather than round it – wrong !!!! I guess everybody else was doing the same – should have stayed on the motorway. Delayed by a good 45 minutes plus, compounded by a set of errant malfunctioning traffic lights in the middle of Preston.
One bit of standstill mirth in the rain though – a skip lorry from a company called PG SKIPS !!!!
As expected, the hotel was all pretty organised, with the now customary perspex screens at reception, etc. The services themselves and the shop had become one way – a bit like IKEA – but seemed to work OK.
Breakfast was organised so that there was minimal contact between staff and guest. Your breakfast order arrived on a tray on a trestle next to your table, server stepped back, you did the transfer, sever removed tray.
Off to Scotland tomorrow……..