towards the northern powerhouse?

Up to the Northern Powerhouse for a few days, although the infrastructure and communications with the south is still in need of attention.

Heading north, I travelled through around 100 miles of coned motorways and trunk roads.

Whilst there, we were looking for flights to Prague. Fly on Thursday or go via London. Alternatively, add between 4 and 20 hours to the journey to go via Amsterdam, Frankfurt or, less obviously, via Oslo. I suppose a stopover could be entertaining, but it misses the powerhouse direct flight aspect.

And then returning south, one of us used trains and suffered a curiously non-functioning 'replacement bus service' for part of the journey, despite taking a different route to avoid a different replacement bus service.

Now, whatever happened to that £7 billion of improvements that the Treasury provisioned back in 2014? Promises, promises...