FAFFING ABOUT AT HOME
Monday began slowly, we googled a lot in the morning and drank a good deal of coffee. Then we spent quite a lot of time asking one another where Suffolk was and then we decided to get in the van and drive as far North as we could before it got dark -or before we got dark.
At the M1’s J15 one of the assistants wondered “just what is Billing Aquadrome?”
It’s a sign seen SO many times without a ‘what’ as to what it represents: I’m obviously guessing at a sort of water related.. erm.. expansive area- is it a water slide type experience? or could something more sinister lurk beneath those two peculiarly placed words. We’d rather not look it up in case it’s a massive disappointment.

Listening to local radio when you’re travelling about is great- though you do have to sort the wheat from the chaff a bit. We’d been listening to Simon and Garfunkel on a CD and were in a great state of reverie and relaxation (apart from that hello darkness my old friend tune which one assistant finds intensely irritating- but hey, CDs are good- you can skip tracks and everything) when, reverting to local radio we were accosted by that particularly nasty cover version of one of their goodies. We were agreed that Suggs’ Cecilia sucks and had ruined our Simon and Garfunkel experience quite comprehensively.

The Assistants appreciate that in this day and age the unnecessary over-use of fossil fuels could be considered to be rather frivolous and not a little unaware of the significance of our actions. However we are undertaking this journey in a dual fuel, bird’s delivery van- the sort that people may deliver flowers in, and we will undoubtedly expand our minds and horizons and extend our love around this green and pleasant land whilst we hunt and hunt for the mythical service stations that sell LPG autogas, the low-emission-option fuel, so we think we’ve offset a bit there- hope so.
Where do you go for gas though? It’s a three act play. The guy in the London Gateway Shell informed us, quite rightly as it turned out, that there was bound to be one at J8 of the M1- we accidentally cruised past that one and continued to do similar manoeuvres for the lion share of the tank of unleaded petrol that we’d had to revert to. This was a little upsetting at such an early stage, when we were so happy and smug to have the capability to burn 17% less carbon dioxide than a petrol van and 20 times less nitrogen dioxide as well as 120 times less particle emissions than a diesel van.

TRIANGULAR LODGE
We noted around about J10 that Tesco are indeed taking over the world. One of us has long held deep, deep disrespect for Lady Porter (who owns it and is now hiding out of the reach of her just desserts in Israel, apparently) -kind as she was to do a great little spot of gerry-mandering around an asbestos filled tower block on our old doorstep . We mused for quite sometime on the meaning of those 5 little letters- Taken Every Single Community Over or um.. Totally Eaten Small Children’s Opportunities.
Extra points for the best translation of this acronym- or.. for a good reworking of Ottawan’s 1979 classic D.I.S.C.O.

Anyhow…We then went to Rothwell in Northamptonshire, a pretty, pretty village with Victorian terraces and weird bungalows. We were heading towards the Triangular Lodge on the recommendation of Slee. Its in Rushton and it was now nudging half past 4 and we were yet to visit a place of interest apart from ‘my house’ on this, our first day. What is a triangular Lodge were the words upon our lips, just what is a Triangular Lodge? Closed from October to March that’s what, as are many of the attractions that we hoped to visit and point you towards. But it does look bloody good against a darkening sky and if you’ve got a camera that has a nice setting for low light- which surprisingly few of these new-fandangled digital thingummy jiggeries have, we’ve noticed. Then you could take a pic. It’s a 16^th century Folly, a testament to Catholicism by Sir Thomas Tresham, but a running theme was emerging, ‘closed October til march’ and…. ‘closed just before you are likely to arrive’ was probably to join this rule a little later on…