Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra, shown here waving off their cousin Eliza, her baby son and his nursemaid after a stay at Steventon Rectory, would be astonished at the way we all whizz about so independently in the 21st century.

Over the past few days I have been lucky enough to visit family in Cardiff and Cirencester and meet up with part of the Nottingham contingent who had braved the floods to drive down. How wonderful to be able to see family and friends for a couple of days, catch up with news, and marvel at how babies are developing while our backs are turned.

In Jane’s day, unless you were wealthy enough to travel post, like Henry Crawford, and if you were a single woman of indifferent fortune, getting across the country was a complicated and frustrating matter.

The duration of Jane and Cassandra’s visits to see family in London and Kent was often determined by the availability and willingness of one of the Austen brothers to escort their sisters home. Jane mentions in her letters her frustration at being dependent on the whims of others, while Fanny Price is unhappily exiled in Portsmouth until someone can spare the time to fetch her back to Mansfield.

Having endured the dubious joys of the M4 between Newport and Cardiff with its 50mph restrictions, reducing to an exhilarating 20mph once in the city itself, it might not be too long until some bright entrepreneurial spirit reintroduces the barouche, the curricle or the phaeton.

Henry Crawford and his four horses left Northamptonshire at 9.30am and were at his uncle’s London house in time for a late dinner. Quick and environmentally friendly- how fab was the Regency period - if you were of independent means, that is.😁