It’s 4.15am and I’m in my kitchen ready for the kettle to boil whereas flicking between the Google Maps and Waze apps on my telephone.

I’ve to be at a lay-by in Teesdale between 9.30am and 10am in a automobile that’s fuelled sufficient for the day, and I want to select up a videographer from Leeds on the best way.

My telephone says Leeds is 1hr 30min from our vacation spot, so I ought to get to the videographer by 8am. And he’s 2hr 50min from my gaff close to Bicester, so I might go away virtually an hour later than now, at 5.10am.

But that – and also you’ll have recognized this as you learn it – could be a mistake. Because by the point I get to Leeds for 8am, there will likely be a great deal of folks attending to Leeds for 8am. So the kettle boils, I fill a mug and off I’m going.

Initially it seems like I’ll be daftly early: 7.20am. But I’ll need extra tea and a bun on the best way, and if I gas the automobile close to Leeds, it should final the day. My estimated arrival time creeps onwards.

After a relaxed gas cease, I arrive at 7.55am. Spot on.

The second part of the journey is extra predictable. We’re the one folks attempting to get to a lay-by in Teesdale by 10am, so site visitors is expectedly mild and we’re there by 9.35am.

It couldn’t be less complicated. Or might it? There are variables and choices to go round if it goes awry, which I learn about solely by expertise. Different leaving occasions give completely different outcomes. But a close to fixed, no less than, is how a lot it should value.

A number of weeks in the past, I took a practice to Birmingham. As with the automobile, I stood in my kitchen figuring out journey occasions. Being naive, I might have gone to the station and purchased a ticket.