Meeting Thomas

My son Adrian, and his lovely wife Lucy have recently presented us with a handsome Grandson, Thomas. My daughter Alison has already given us 3 lovely Grand daughters.
They live 57 miles from us near Morpeth. Thomas lives in Hampshire. Only 420 miles away! I foresee much travelling in the future.
Adrian, who is an Officer in the Royal Navy, http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/operations-and-support/surface-fleet/patrol-vessels/fishery-protection-squadron/offshore-patrol-vessels/hms-tyne/commanding-officer/ was able to spend some leave time at the birth, so we took advantage to travel South to meet Thomas and have a rare family meeting.
It is genuinely fulfilling to see new family members coming along, and providing hopes and aspirations for the future. Also, we can play Grand parents even more now!
His Dad has already chosen a mountain bike for him and I am trying to locate a small beekeepers veil and a fishing rod!.
The journey down south is long but easy as long as the traffic works for you.
We make several short stops for breaks and to let Meghan (my Dog) have comfort breaks.
Our first stop is usually at the new service station at Wetherby. Both my wife and I have slight disabilities, sufficient for us to be issued with blue badges to allow us to use disabled parking bays. We only use them when we would have to hobble a distance greater than is comfortable. Whenever we can, we use normal parking spaces on the assumption that someone with greater disability needs the space more than us.
I am always annoyed at the blatant disregard that so many other road users treat the disabled bays and park their motors in them when they don`t have either a badge or disability. Our stop at Wetherby was a case in point. Even from the disabled bays it is a marathon walk to use the facilities here, and inevitably the bays are always in demand. Sure enough a red car pulled in to the bay next to us, 3 young people got out and left the driver in the car. No badge and no obvious disability noted. The driver stayed in the car running the engine to excess. I noted that the car was sign written on the door with the logo of the owning organisation emblazoned thereon. The three passengers eventually returned, to the accompaniment of loud horn blowing from the attention seeking driver, at which point I mentioned to them through the window that they were parking selfishly and that they were stopping genuinely disabled people from using the bays. The driver then hurled abuse at me and tore off at a ridiculous speed. The logo on the side of the car proudly displayed that it belonged to BBC 3 Counties Radio. I am sure that their normally politically correct position would frown on this sort of behaviour.
The chap in the car on the other side of me said that he would have come to my aid, but he had no legs!
I was shaken by the behaviour of the BBC man, and when I arrived at my sons house I looked at the BBC web site and identified the driver from a photograph on the site,as a presenter for 3 counties radio. Obviously not a good man to project the BBC`s image.
Rant over.
We did not let it spoil our day and eventually arrived in Horndean to make acquaintance with young Thomas. I wish him well in life and for the future.
It was quite something to see my son changed from his usual self into a loving and caring father. the pride in his and Lucy`s eyes was obvious to see. Irene and I know that Thomas is in the very best of hands and can look forward to a wonderful future.