“Chuck it all in the van”
“What… the kitchen sink too?”
“Yes”
…. is how the conversation should have gone.
No sooner had we left Banbury than I remembered my shiney stainless steel fruit bowl that I had planned to use as a washing up bowl was still wrapped neatly in my garage. Maybe it was the quantity of stuff in the van already, or my eagerness to set off, or just the inevitability of travel, that you always forget something essential… like washing up sponges. Maybe my forgetfulness is limited to washing up apparatus?
Heading up the motorway from Banbury, blissfully traffic-free, we aimed to get to the north end of the lake district before bed. It was going to be the first night sleep on the newly constructed bed. It was also going to be the first night with two fully grown adult males on the bed. Not that anything more than sleeping would occur, but that alone would be enough to fully test my carpentry skills to the max.
We bombed along chatting and catching up. Both full of nervous energy about the trip we were embarking on, talking about each other’s latest life news while listening to some tasty Club and D&B music. For just a dull bit of motorway, it was awesome.
We phoned a friend who lives in the lakes and is blessed with an incredible lifestyle. Both of us are very jealous of the proximity he has to the highest class of natural rock available in the UK. We were in luck and he was home and very kindly agreed to let us stay the night, breakfast included! Because he lives so far north, we don’t get to see him very often so we garbled on for a long time catching up, later into the night than probably we should have and the next day, further into the morning than was conducive to a productive day.