I travelled back just before Christmas from a lunch with my old boss in Chiswell Green. I was quite surprised that the traffic, which seemed exceptionally heavy on my way out towards St Albans, was now much, much heavier.

I shot down the M25 from the North Watford/St Albans turn-off but noticed nothing was coming up from Hunton Bridge.

I thought no further as I travelled on to Princes Risborough, where I picked up Ellie who had spent the day with her sister. We had a cup of coffee and a chat and then headed down to Amersham at around 5.30pm. As we neared Chorleywood, we hit a queue of traffic en route to the M25 or beyond to Rickmansworth.

Eventually we made it to the Sarratt turn but what was all this? The traffic was nose to tail heading towards North Hill. Everything appeared clogged. Obviously the M25 was still closed in the clockwise direction, so I drove round and returned up the Amersham Road and dropped off towards Chenies. I know the lanes well and I knew how to obtain a short-cut to Flaunden and Belsize and so back to Sarratt.

However, upon travelling up an extremely narrow lane I was surprised to find we had joined onto another long line of traffic.

It transpired something had been spilt on the M25 earlier that day, and the section from Langleybury to the St Albans/Bricket Wood turn, was closed. The resultant overspill as people tried to find a way through the rat runs, rendered these lanes as busy as the M25 at rush hour.

To make matters worse, a woman came down our lane and explained that we all had to back-down the hill, as the lane was blocked. Why we had to back down as opposed to those in the other direction backing up was a minor mystery but I decided not to probe: someone at least was trying to cure the problem.

I had a brand new hire car and so reversing down a narrow lane in the semi-dark was not easy as I did not want to risk picking up the slightest scratch.

We all made it and so I headed off for Latimer. That was a lot easier although there was much more traffic on that road than is normally the case. We finally made it back to Sarratt, having taken an hour from the turning off Chorleywood Road.

It caused me to reflect on what life would have been like without the M25 being built and subsequently widened.

The rush-hour traffic around Watford is and always has been a nightmare, which has grown over the years and will probably increase as Watford Council continues to give the green light to new blocks of flats and similar developments, which will house an average of three people and probably will average two cars per flat.

Ultimately I see a sort of motorised Armageddon enveloping Watford and the locality.

As for the cure on this, the most overcrowded country in Europe, it seems well out of reach in the current climate. The challenges facing our grandchildrens’ world are just too daunting to contemplate.

The world attempts to find a middle way between the excesses of Donald Trump’s bigotry and the likes of those who campaign for every would-be-immigrant in Calais to be given free ferry access to the UK. I understand Trump but do not agree with him, while I find the developments in Calais increasingly bizarre.

At the drop of a hat, it seems you can have an animated discussion on the subject with anyone, while I read with amazement that there are proposals to build a multi-million pound complex to house the would-be immigrants outside Calais. Surely that will only encourage more to head for the Pas de Calais? Perhaps the area will be ceded and become an independent country.

Certainly the floods of immigrants from east and south are going to change the face of Europe and I see no end or cure in sight, for there are many unhappy and impoverished in Africa: perhaps they too will migrate north.

And then there is the weather. For once the English have good reason to talk about it. As foreigners used to say the British talk about the weather because there is so much of it. Now there is too much of it. The floods have hit the headlines and past and present governments are blamed but the fact is the weather is exceptional, everywhere. Normal precautions cannot cope with the severely abnormal. Two feet of snow in New York? How can we cope with such things?

What is becoming of our world? I recall my mother stopping the daily paper because my father became so worked up about it, she feared in his advanced years, he might succumb to a heart attack.

Fortunately, while the news does irritate me, eventually I find myself reduced to a weary shake of the head. I then turn to the USA news on the Daily Mail website and after reading that, you start seeing the UK news in a better, more sanguine light.

But reminders of the changing world are always there. I don’t know what they are going to do when summer arrived but they seem happy now, for we returned on December 30 to our home in France and noted the camellia was out, since followed by the daffodils and then some primroses and geraniums.

The plants are as confused as I am, only they seem happy about it for the moment, anyway.