Life on the M4 – this week’s episode

Those of you who are following this saga will know that I have a love/hate relationship with the M4. I have to travel up and down it on a regular basis - I need it but I hate it. This week, having driven just past the turn off for the M25 (from whence you can pick up the M3, my alternative motorway), the dreaded roadside signs suddenly declared that up ahead the M4 was shut. Not for a minute or two, but for several hours. Not you understand before the M25 when I could have got off the motorway, but just a few feet afterwards..... There was no alternative but to get off at Windsor and go across country to the M3. And it was Ascot traffic... You can guess the rest - it took me 3 1/2 hours. Incidentally there was no explanation as to why the M4 was shut - does anyone know?