OK, why?

[bellinghman]

Royston is a small rural town. If it wasn't for the A10 actually passing through the one-way system, we'd see little traffic indeed. And one feature of this rurality is that the occasional agricultural tractor features among the vehicles in the centre of town.

But I would like an explanation of why, coming out on to the A10 this morning, I was to witness one tractor doing a U-turn around the roundabout at the end of our street. And why, my having followed said tractor the kilometre out to the leisure centre roundabout near the A505 bypass, it then did another U-turn to head back into town again.

(I was tempted to stay and see whether it just kept shuttling back and forth along the A10 between the two roundabouts, but I had to get to work.)

ETA: it looks like jon_a_five and silly_swordsman have it between them: there's a tractor dealer down a side road halfway between the two roundabouts, so someone doing a quick road test matches the path.

Comments

[jon-a-five.livejournal.com]

Is there a tractor showroom? Maybe it was a test drive.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Hmm, now that's a thought. But no, I don't think there's such a dealer around. And the only commercial premises on that route are a funerary stonemason and a kitchen showroom.

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

There is a commercial machinery company of some sort down Garden Walk.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Aha, is there?

(Checks)

So there is: Mark Weatherhead Ltd. And the Google Street View in through their gate does indeed show some tractors.

Well, that's almost certainly it, then. Turn left out of Garden Walk, down the A10 to the next roundabout, up the A10 to the next roundabout, and turn left back into Garden Walk.

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

Zooming in on Google Maps photo, it certainly looks like a tractor dealership.

It appears to be Mark Weatherhead Ltd, offering Used farm & horticultural machinery sales & servicing UK, so jon_a_five is very likely correct.

(Yes, I've got to rebuild our complete software stack on my box, so am just waiting for that to finish, why do you ask?)

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

Joyriding? Novice tractor driver practicing in an early morning lull?

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Joyriding would be an interesting one, given that the southerly roundabout is all of 150 metres from the Police Station.

(And 'early morning'? You think I would have anything to do with that time of day? I tend to head in to work for 10:00, so this was decently after the morning rush hour. 'Lull' though - yes.)

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

Having just woken up, I presumed it was early morning there too - it takes me a bit before I get cosmopolitan in the mornings!

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. You are up distressingly early, I can see how a bleary brain will tend to assume everywhere is having it as bad.

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

Trying to get the kid out the door. I swear, school start times here are some kind of bizarre societal punishment for reproducing.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. If it weren't for the fact that I've already seen our Chicago guy logging into Skype, I might believe you. No, I'm coming to the distressing conclusion that the US is a country that gets up horribly early.

[j-lj.livejournal.com]

Your right they do, I know of at least two colleagues who have a three hour commute into the New York office each day.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Three hours each way each day?

That's thirty sodding hours a week. That's awful.

I can only hope for them that they're able to do that on some form of train, and that they can trade off getting some work done on the train against office hours. But the only time I've had a commute of anywhere near that time (Eltham to Cambridge, for about a year), I only had to do it two days a week, and I worked the other three at home.

[j-lj.livejournal.com]

They travel in by car and catch up with the overnight emails and reports on the way in, while their driver dose the hard bit. That the flip side of living in Long Island.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Ah: 'Their driver'

So basically they do three hours in a mobile office, then a few in a shared office where they can do face-to-face, and then another three hours in the mobile one again. I'd not realised we were talking about that cost level.