We have a motorway which surrounds our capital city. It wasn’t always there: there was once a time when meandering crazily round country lanes was the only way of getting from Berkshire to Kent to Essex.

But bit by bit, they built the roads and joined the dots, and now everyone who is anyone uses the M25.

The first time I used it was in 1990, just four years after its great ring was completed.

I was off to a cottage in Yorkshire with my friend Helen who lived in Sevenoaks and a bunch of shouty, hilarious girls.

I had been warned about the shortcomings of the driving on this motorway. The White Van Man phenomenon, where tradesmen would joust, unafraid and unabashed; and of course, the crazy stockbroker manoeverings.

But being a newshound with Friday afternoons off, I could jump on the motorway at lunchtime and be with Helen by mid afternoon.

It was quiet, and I was fine, and I wondered what all the fuss was about.

Just a year later, and I had fallen in love, but the man of my dreams was moving an hour down the M25.

No problem, I concluded, remembering that sunny afternoon of yore.

This time, however, it was not one journey but twice daily, if I wanted to see Phil. And each hour-long dash took place at rush hour.

The road showed its teeth immediately. Split second decisions were made by idiots; a whole hour could be spent with the foot down surrounded by a packed convoy, all driving at 80mph.

I remember braking for the cocksure Porsches and Mercedes which swaggered seemingly oblivious across three lanes.

Many of these people were Londoners. By building them a motorway, our august authorities had not rendered the journeys they already made more manageable. Oh no. Londoners simply pack more journeys in to maximise every opportunity, financial and otherwise.

By 1993, the stretch of road designed to carry 88,000 traffic movements a day was host to 200,000.

A few nights after the first of these, my initial journeys, I began to experience an unsettling phenomenon. You know that moment just before you go to sleep? It is that moment between waking and sleeping, when occasionally you just might perceive what it is you dream of.

I began to see, in this half-light state, the tail lights of the car ahead coming up, really fast, as if I was about to crash into it. I would wake with a start, and my foot would involuntarily brake in case there were no tomorrow.

With time, of course, one gets used to anything. I became an assertive and occasionally aggressive driver, well able to hold my own against anyone, even a London taxi. I could cope with most eventualities on this chaotic cockney circle.

Except standstill, nose to tail traffic.

This is a motorway where there is simply no point getting off. There is no quicker way. If you meet twenty miles of traffic piled up in your direction, the only solution is to write off half a day at least, and wait.

I have never been a patient soul, and I know those who love me dread being in a car when I am pent up, unable to do anything, trapped. I think it is the nearest I ever get to claustrophobia, the feeling that cars are on all sides of me, and there is no.Way.Out.

Oh, I just long to be the owner of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

To simply sprout wings and fly away over the Kentish fields, with me, as Truly Scrumptious, singing like a nightingale, dressed in a fluffy white frock in the front seat.

And Phil as Caractacus Potts.

We have always had a sneaking love for this children’s film and the fund of trivia which surrounds it.

It is a veritable mine of secret handshakes. And it would be: because it is written by Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond.

Its producer was Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli, who produced the Bond films. Phil and I love to play ‘spot the Bond link’. Baron Bomburst, ruler of Vulgaria, is Gert Frobe, who played Goldfinger; and he is the very best bad bombastic king I ever did see. Next time you watch it, check out the number plates on the cars. I’m fairly sure one is Cub 1.

Even bit-parts are played by giants: Robert Helpmann, who played the child catcher, was one of the greats in ballet of his time, and a great choreographer and actor; Benny Hill played a wonderful cameo as the toymaker. They’re all there, doing what they do best.

We buy it all, from the sepia footage charting the early history of the fictional car, to toot sweets, the Old Bamboo, the Child Catcher – Truly and the Professor living happily ever after.

I have a dream. I have always wanted to play the part of the Baroness- that plummy lilac siren who is the subject of so much of the Baron’s ire. Anna Quayle played the part with such putrid perfection:  but I would so love to try that scene where the baron tries repeatedly, and without success, to shuffle her off this mortal coil.

Flying cars are still a little way away. I dream of the day when 28.8 gigowatts can be generated by a pile of rubbish and a flux capaciter. Not only space, but time travel might be possible, as portrayed with very big shoulderpads in the trilogy of my youth, Back To The Future.

My youngest son has developed a love for time travel, as portrayed by HG Wells.

The whole family listens to stories to get to sleep. Mine tends to be Jane Eyre or Diary of a Nobody. Phil loves  Iain M Banks. Maddie listens to Sally Gardner’s I, Coriander. Felix, however, prefers The Time Machine.

Such a blokey novel, fustian and gentlemanly. But Wells has a talent for making his fiction so real, so immediate, that it could be happening in the next room.

When I asked Felix why he likes it, he said he loves the thought of an Edwardian gentleman building a machine which overtakes Felix in his time and travels forward, to a time where Felix would like to go.

Talk about overtaking in the fast lane.