Well after weeks, nay months of waiting it was time, time to load up the car and depart into the great wide yonder...........
Okay I'm making it sound a little bit more dramatic then it actually was but you get the idea. Despite early pessimistic signs there were several other people from Leicester stake attending, but they had decided to go in their own groups which meant that once again I would be making the trip by myself.
Which to be perfectly honest was very frustrating as I would have given anything for a passenger or two as events are much funny when you have someone to talk to. Still Grumpy put it perspective by pointing out that it wasn't the first time I had done the trip by myself and it wouldn't be the end of the world.
As I set out I was quickly glad for one thing I had done differently this year, as I have managed to get lost in Manchester serveral times now ( that one way system is awful) I asked to borrow Tap Dances Sat Nav. What I didn't realise however was she had one of the all singing all dancing ones ( not literally of course as otherwises that would be a little distracting for the driver) which actually gave you updates on traffic. Not that it told you that of course up popped this little red square with a picture of a car which if you pushed told you there was a traffic jam and gave you a option for a detour which I decided to take assuming it would just be a small detour around the traffic.
( of course the other wird thing with having to push the red square to get the information is that the Sat Nav voice actually tells you when you set out not to use it whilst drving. So do they expect you to pull over and use it?)
Anyway as it turned out it wasn't a small detour. Not by a long shot, it actually took me off on a magical mystery tour of the countryside which got me a bit nervous because if the satnav had decided to break I wouldn't have had a clue as to where I was!
I think I ended up going through macclesfield at one point.
However the Sat Nav did a sterling job and got me to Manchester bypassing two major traffic jams that I would have been otherwise been sat in for a very long time. Although it did take me to the far side of the university campus to where I needed to go and then seemed to get very annoyed with me for not listening to it.
I got there round about 5.30pm to find a long queue of YSA in the main centre waiting for registration to start. So I joined the queue and we waited and waited and waited. I had the misfortune of being stuck in front of one YSA who just couldn't stop moaning about the wait and that we shouldn't have to wait this long as registration was supposed to have started at 5pm. He seemed full of righteous indigination in that he had to wait, as of course it was him and him alone who was forced to wait! Finally someone pointed out to him that the reason we were having to wait was that although they had given a start time for registration that were obivously anticipating MMT ( Mormon Mean Time) because when do people turn up on time to church activities!
I got my key, went back to the car to grab my bag and went to look for the hall I would be staying in. It was at this point I looked at the key and had to surpress a groan as I recognised the name, it was all too familiar.
Yes I was in the same hall as last year. The one furthest from the activities " arrggghhhh!!!!" Not again! Well there was anything I could do about it and besides it would give me some good exercise.
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