AFTER many years, I have finally extricated the other half from his addiction to his treasured sat nav.

There have been many holidays ruined by his adherence to its ridiculous directions and by his slavish need to do what it says, even if said instruction flies in the face of common sense.

There have been moments when, thanks to its ‘help’, we have found ourselves confronting what is essentially a track across fields rather than a navigable road surface.

On other occasion, he has ignored a clear signpost on the actual road in front of his eyes and has instead done what Mr Nav suggested, even though it is clearly easier to simply follow the signs.

I, the wife in the passenger seat known as ‘Satnag’ (that old chestnut), have often exclaimed aloud during particularly exasperating journeys that it seems as though he’d even try to drive through a brick wall just because the Satnav told him to. 

All this travelling fun has led to countless arguments when we have been heading off on family holidays. It rather ruins their beginning when our journey has been so fraught and full of wrong turns and drama.

We’ve had any amount of nightmare trips on the usual suspect roads – M25, M27, the A303 and M3 – some of which were so dreadful that we mention them from time to time, shaking our heads ruefully that we ever made it out alive.  

And so, quite recently, I got so fed up that I made him turn it off, and argued the case for doing it all the old fashioned way.

I looked out my trusty road atlas and planned a route to our destination for us spontaneously, something which turned out to be a revelatory experience.

As we were doing it ourselves, and I was able to quickly evaluate all of the options based on the map in front of me, we avoided all of the dreaded M roads and instead travailed quickly and smoothly through the smaller As, Bs and other minor roads.

In addition, I suffer from very bad travel sickness and journeys can often feel endless, but a bit of light concentration on the map distracted me to the perfect degree.

Along the way, we admired picturesque villages and the beautiful homes which were on the route, and were able to make a note of the enticing pubs and restaurants we passed, scribing mental notes to return.

We savoured glimpses of what was, for us, undiscovered country, full of possibility and places to stop to explore. 

It was such a satisfactory experience all round that we have decided, when in the car together embarking on a suitable journey, we’ll adopt this plan henceforth.