Birmingham

I had the drive from hell yesterday trying to get to Birmingham.

Firstly junction 1 of the M18 was shut, so we were stuck for over an hour, moving just 1 mile in that time.

Then the sat-nav took us off at a junction on the M42 for no reason and directed us in a completely different direction. We got back on the M42 and were then plagued by mile after mile of 50mph average speed checks. What was infuriating was that there was hardly any work being done on what was described as 'essential maintenance'! This was all on the first half of the journey!

Then, we got behind what can only be described as a two lane wide moving boiler. The stretch of motorway we were on had only two lanes and this took them both up! By this time I had lost the will to be angry and just saw the funny side.

Finally we got where we needed to be, over two hours late. But from a double glazing point of view, Birmingham is seriously lacking in PVCu, and what PVCu is already there is of an extremely poor quality. Anybody wishing to expand should take a serious look at Birmingham and maybe the Midlands as a whole, there's some serious potential there.