Navigating around

Been flying around the country this last couple of weeks. I've been busy carrying out some Health & Safety audits at the other sites. It's something that I quite enjoy, but it is a bit tiring.

Anyway, we were due to go and see H's dad at the weekend and I tried to tie this in with a visit to one of our sites across there. Also, as you've probably read on here, our good friends Tim & Bobbie have had their second - a fantastic little boy called Zach. Both of us wanted to go and see him, so we thought we could possibly tie that in too.
This meant driving across from ours to near Kidderminster, me dropping H off and then driving North for about an hour to work. Spend Friday night with H's dad, heading off to Worcester Christmas Market on the Saturday. After breakfast on Sunday, drive down to NW London, then back home again Sunday afternoon.
Last Wednesday I printed out a few route plans. After a while of staring at them, I thought - sod this, why don't we get a Sat Nav???
It's something that I've been toying with for a few months and this was an ideal excuse. I scoured a few websites for the best option and settled on the Tomtom One Regional. Bought online but picked up from PC World the very same day. £195 including a decent carrycase.
An evening of checking how it all worked and I gave it a trial on Thursday - work & back.
Friday morning and I typed in the destination postcode. Confident in it's ability, I left the road atlas in the back of the car. It didn't disappoint.
I cannot sing the praises of these things enough. I'm very, very pleased with it. It's very accurate, it's routes are good, it's clear and easy to use.
A real test for it came after I dropped H off. The trip from H's dad's place to the factory across there is one that I don't know at all. It took me through some twisty, turny backroads and at one point I came across a "road closed" sign. I just turned off down a different lane and within seconds, it had recalculated where to take me. Most impressive.
The journey down to London was just as good. Built into the thing is blue tooth communication with your mobile phone. It uses this to find out traffic problems. Sure enough, it sussed this and took us around the snarl-up.
I think one of the major benefits of using it is down to a totally stress free journey. Even on routes that you know, it takes all the hassle out of it. You don't have to keep an eye on road signs for your turning or anything. It gives you a distance countdown to your next exit/junction.
I'm so impressed, we're even thinking about getting H one as well. She would be able to use it when she goes places with work, but also it will make life so much easier whenever her route home has problems (which can be quite frequent)

That's got to be the longest post from me for a while. I do have other stuff I can say, but I'll save it for a day or two. If you're anything like me, in blogs and the like, if you see a large chunk of text, you tend to switch off!