Sorry, this isn't a very cheerful start to this blog. I keep checking the news to see what the latest is on the M5 crash yesterday. My elder son drove down to Torquay yesterday morning (and then back again) only hours before, and then my niece left Taunton to drive home to Bridgwater and passed that spot only ten minutes earlier. She works at Musgrove Park Hospital and said her ward was being cleared to take the survivors. Her boyfriend (a trucker) was driving back from Devon, and had to leave the motorway at Tiverton.

This probably hasn't impinged that much on the rest of the country, but there's a shiver when it passes that close to you.