Typical UK Summer Driving

On Thursday 24 th July I decided to drive from Sheffield to visit Cardiff for a few weeks.
This is a journey that usually takes just over 3 hours.

However on that day this how the events occurred.
Driving south on the M1 where the 50mph restrictions are , north of Nottingham, we came to a halt and moved about 50m (Yes - meters) in around 30minutes, eventually things started to move slowly (Considering it was probably the hottest day of what was a crap summer, you can imagine that my temperature gauge was getting quite high, plus the fact that I drive a Renault Megane Coupe and for some unknown reason when idling they tend to almost stutter and stall, and difficult to restart).
The cause was the moving of two very over sized loads down the motorway in the middle of the afternoon, you would expect these things to travel in the early hours of the morning wouldn't you!.

Bye now as the traffic was moving freely, however notices started to appear that the M42 was blocked at junction 11, and to expect long delays. So I thought I would be clever and continue down the M1 and take the M69 to Coventry and on to Worcester via Stratford to join the M5.
Well all went fine until just past Coventry when we all came to a halt again and spent the next half an hour traveling towards a traffic roundabout (I forget the exact location).
It seems a pick up truck made contact with a Jaguar (car that is), and the two drivers who could easily have moved to a nearby lay by to discuss matters, decided to annoy everyone and block the road up instead.

So after a nice drive across country to Worcester it was plain sailing down the M5 and onto the M50 through Ross on Wye until just past Symonds Yat, over the hill almost in Wales, and guess what.
Yes, another 15 - 20 minutes to get to Monmouth, reason closing off the inside lane of a dual carriage way so some work men from Monmouthshire Council can pick up litter from a grass verge alongside the road. Please can someone in Monmouthshire get a grip.

Eventually got to Cardiff after 6 and a half hours, very frustrated and angry.
Also consider all the wasted petrol / diesel from all those thousands of stationary vehicles going nowhere.