Residents from Beckenham to Tunbridge Wells may have seen me pootling about between client visits in my little Smart car. It's perfect for town and relatively environmentally friendly. Not too friendly when a big juggernaut decides to switch lanes on the motorway without seeing me however... If I didn't have fast reactions I'm sure I would be toast! It does fly though; not off the line from nought, but once it gets going it's very fast. It's speed-limited to 85 mph to keep the tyres on the road it's so light.
The sponsor for my Chelsea garden this year is Hasmead plc, a large landscaping company who are working on the Heathrow terminal 5 project. Their headquarters are in Milton Keynes, so I quite often need to drive through London and up the M1 to see them. I travel up before the congestion charge kicks in, but on the way home it's still in force. I was just checking the freeway route from south to north London, ready for the extension of the zone to the West. Now, call me old fashioned, but if Ken thinks that all the traffic going that direction is all going to fit in a timely manner over the Vauxhall Bridge and around Victoria Station he's more of an optimist than me. I'll try it once, but I suspect I'll end up doing what most business travellers will do - use my usual route and charge the cost of the congestion charge on to my customer. Is that really going to save the planet?
Linda Bush is a garden designer based in Kent.
www.lindabush.co.uk/chelsea.html
www.lindabush.co.uk/chelsea.html
