For goodness sake, Maggie. Donuel suggested that he'd heard of shortages of gas and electricity. There is a shortage of neither of those. There IS a shortage of petrol at filling stations, which Donuel didn't mention. That is currently the one and only shortage we have! That is not me "quibbling." That's you having another go at me for correcting Donuel, who is frequently in need of correcting. On this occasion, he wasn't, as he'd queried with a question mark what he'd picked up your end about the UK. I was happy to correct his reading of the matter. Harmless stuff, no wading in from you needed.

For the first time in 18 months we visited our son in London, just an overnight stay Friday to Saturday. We set off early on Friday with a full tank, blissfully unaware of the impending petrol crisis. There is no way we'd get there and back, 520 miles in total, on one tank of petrol (Fiesta, folks). We heard about the crisis on the car radio on the way there, so I did what we never do, I topped up at Leigh Delamere services (ripoff) which would have would have seen us home today but with very little fuel left. We had a 'mare getting out of London this evening (we have to come over Kew Bridge to get on the M4 at Chiswick). Well there's a big petrol station at Chiswick roundabout, and whaddya know, the panic buyers were out in such force that the whole area was gridlocked because of the on-road queueing at the filling station. We covered a mile and a half in just over an hour, knowing we then had to confront a 250-mile drive in the dark. Then , once on the M4, we found it was shut at Junction 6. So we diverted on to the M3 and A303. I don't much like the 303 in the dark. We use that route sometimes but only in daylight. Luckily, we found a filling station this side of Stonehenge that allowed us a max of £30 spend. So we've arrived home with just over half a tank. Never again! We got home at 11pm, and, I tell you, I'm a shadow of me former self!