London to York, Day 2: Bank Holiday in Edgeware (part2)

It felt a little like a hapless-tourist comedy film, sitting on the sidewalk in front of a closed rental car office in Edgeware. I imagined some dinky soundtrack playing somewhere, fast motion cuts of me or Sharon getting up, looking forlornly over the locked gate, covering our eyes at the window as we peer inside, vainly semi-expecting someone to suddenly appear with a bag of fast-food nosh and an apology at the ready. Yeah, it was riot.

Hello, Edgeware. Lovely day, innit ? 

Maybe I was flashing on Planes, Trains and Automobiles .

We called Chris to let him know what was up, although there was little point to it (he doesn't have a car, and even if he did, what could he do?), except for getting him out of bed again. I thought I could hear the Snickers bar melting in the warm sun, in Sharon's bag.

After an hour and fifteen minutes, the phone rang. Melanie apologized up and down, said she had been on the phone the entire time trying to get this worked out.

"So, do this," she said, "get a cab and take it to King's Cross. Have the cab wait and we'll pay for it, and your car will be waiting for you there. They're expecting you."

Good news/bad news. The good news was there was a car waiting for us; the bad news was that I was going to have to drive it out of downtown London...which is precisely what I didn't want to do in the first place. Sharon was a little disappointed by this development - she thought they should just come and get us, and hand over the keys. On some level, seeing as how someone screwed this pooch quite magnificently, this would have made some sense. But clearly this wasn't going to happen - it was a bank holiday, and almost no one was working.

We gathered up the bags and ambled up the street - there appeared to be a crosswalk up there where Sharon thought we should flag a cabbie.. On the way up to it, a cab spied us and pulled over before I even had a chance to flag it. I guess a couple of people toting four pieces of airport-ready bags on High St in Edgeware screams "tourists in need of a cab". Lucky guess.

We wrestled the bags in to the cab; the driver was a London cabbie straight out of central casting, a bald, deeply accented bloke in his late sixties, jovial and friendly, not at all surprised that we got hung up on the holiday. "You're my last fare today; I'm off to Spain for a three week holiday tomorrow."

As we approached King's Cross, it occurred to me to ask for directions to get back to the M1, despite having the GPS, and of course he recited them with cabbie-precision, and of course I was completely unable to follow it. Sharon nodded; she said she got it.

We went by the zoo. A queue easily half a mile long snaked its way from the admission gate. Bank holiday, beautiful late summer weather. Let's go to the zoo, luv.

The cabbie deposited us at the EuropCar office, which was in the throes of no-other-rental-car-office-open-on-a-bank-holiday chaos,

EuropCar at King's Cross

and we stood in line at the counter. Well, I did; Sharon sat and kept on eye on the luggage.

The guy next to me explained to the clearly overwhelmed desk guy (one of four) that he had rented a car the prior weekend because his Ferrari's windshield wipers didn't work. When the shop returned his Ferrari (my sympathy levels dipping even further here), the wipers still didn't work, and he needed a car again (a V-8 Audi, he insisted). It wasn't clear to me why the guy behind the desk needed to hear the bit about his Ferrari; maybe it was for my benefit.

Thanks for that, Nigel. Good luck with your Ferrari.

We got the paperwork straightened out, they slapped a deposit on my credit card (which Sharon objected to, but I was too weary to argue) and after a solid hour, we piled into a black Ford Focus.

The directions out of the car hire joint that the cabbie left us with were predicated on a dodgy little right turn out of the office,

EuropCar on the right. Get across that lane in front, miss the lorrie, and head down Penton Rise on the left. Sure, mate.. YOU do it. 

across three lanes of traffic, to head south on Penton Rise, then over to Wicklow St, then a quick jog to Britannia St, then right back onto the A501. Follow that, he said, and you'll run right into the M1 (eventually).

Piece of cake. 

Yeah, right.

Well, the three lanes of traffic (deceptively quiet in the Google Maps screen grab above) was packed with traffic, and I just didn't see us getting across. Screw it. We fired up the Focus, my palms sweating, and we headed left out of the lot. Sharon had the GPS running, pointed at York.

One left turn after a mile or so, and we were on the A1. Which is the same road we took the year before, the parallel route north. Stayed out of the bus lane (the only bit of advice he gave us that I actually followed) and in fifteen minutes we were in the outskirts of the city proper, and speeding our way up to York.

So much for being clever. Three and a half hours after being dropped in Edgeware, we were finally heading toward Yorkshire.

Note to self. Try another car hire strategy. London traffic 2, Dave 0.