We try to have a good walk every day. Sometimes this is towards the end of the afternoon. Between around 430pm and 630pm there seems to be a collective madness in the air of the traffic, everyone rushing to and fro, getting home as quickly as possible. Beware at this time – drivers are going faster, accelerating away from the lights, giving little quarter to us pedestrians. It can be scary on those roads not protected by pavements.

Go earlier and there is just the normal busyness of the day, not at all frenetic. Go later and all is peace and calm, with much reduced traffic.

Strange that the traffic police choose a Sunday morning to check for speeding on our local main road, and not this frenetic time, when they would ‘catch’ many more speeders!