Yesterday Solveig and I arrived in London Gatwick airport together with our fellow elders and their wives. After some planning of which route to follow towards Cardiff the young elders were driving one rented car and the older elders another one. That was a big mistake!

The younger ones were obviously not observant enough in their driving. They missed the right junction! As a result they had to find a new route back to the M4. They lost more than half an hour of wasted driving! Meanwhile we could enjoy a nice meal at a service station on the motorway waiting for them to catch up!

After a happy reunion and a lot of teasing, joking and fun, – and some food for the empty stomachs of the younger ones, we were on the way towards Cardiff again. At the toll station of the Severn Bridge the younger ones were running into problems again. Per tried to help them but they did not hear or see his attempts to rescue them from the problems ahead of them. Their problem was that they had put all their trust in plastic cards and not in real money! They apparently thought that they could manage in a foreign country without any money! Alas, they were wrong!

I am so sorry to say that we misjudged the situation. After we had passed the toll station we slowed down to see how they managed. It seemed to us that they were let through. Therefore we happily continued our journey. After a short while our joy was turned into bitter sadness and despair on their behalf. We got a telephone call from our dear friends asking for British Pounds. We would have loved to help them but there was no way we could turn on the motorway to get back to them. It was so painful to know that our friends were left behind and there was nothing we could do to help them!

When we safely arrived at our hotel we phoned them to find out about their situation. Then we came to know that they had been taken by a service car with flashing emergency lights to get to the motorway going the opposite direction. They were rejected at the toll station because of lack of money! They had to go about 20 miles back to find an ATM cash machine in a village to be able to withdraw enough money to pay the toll on the Severn Bridge. The British people are firmly and consistently keeping to their own rules! Foreigners with no money but only plastic cards will find no mercy here!

The happy end of the story is that they all arrived one hour later than us, when we were fast to sleep; and they all managed to rise early enough for the big British breakfast in the morning! Today we have had a lot of fun together and all the wives have been doing some marvellous shopping!