Smell the petrol

One family's thoughts on how to travel the world without leaving home, much. This post is by Nicola

I'm ashamed of myself really: in just two weeks of holidaying I've managed to drive nearly 1,000 miles. Most of this was local trips in Yorkshire, although the big mileage came from an up and down of the A1, plus a return journey from Carlisle to Wast Water. Although the family also clocked up the miles on the gear-changing, brake-waring crossing of Hard Knott pass between Boot and Ambleside.

Because we need to drive so little, I usually stick to a membership car club scheme, Streetcar. But this time it was more convenient to rent the cars from Sixt.

As a result of this I've been into a couple of motorway service stations - better for clean loos than most train stations still - and nowadays also serving a good cup of coffee, but otherwise soleless places. Assuming it is not an April Fool (and we are months out as I am writing this in August) there are plans in the Cotswolds to build an apparently "green service station" with a grass roof, electric vehicle refuelling points, and a veg patch. The full story is in the Guardian here.

What struck me about the service stations on the A1 was they were an identical layout, and nothing to tell me where in the world I was. Apparently the kit-design is the way to make cost and building savings - you create a model that can be dumped anywhere you acquire the land, a bit like Lego. So if this so-called green service station was to go ahead it would make sense to build it just like all the others. Or to make a model that would be acceptable to all the other service station developers.

I wonder if there is still time to ask the question: do we need yet another service station? I'm guessing this is a no, even if you could pour unleaded petrol into your car while munching on a locally-sourced goat's cheese sarnie.