Richard and I awoke a little after 7am, but awaited a knock from Pauline before getting up and using the bathroom. After breakfast, we loaded up the car, a task made slightly easier by the fact that Pauline was leaving some stuff behind at home, thanked Pauline's parents for their hospitality, and got on our way.
Around Crewe we noticed the police out in force, stopping and making checks on a number of vehicles. We hoped that they wouldn't be stopping us, a very suspicious bunch if ever there was one, and waved Pauline's wooden-handled umbrella around as it was the only bit of wood readily available to touch. Had the police noticed this, they might have had even more reason to stop us, but fortunately they didn't.
We stopped briefly at Gladstone Pottery Museum in Stoke-on-Trent. Many years ago, Pauline had bought a round tuit from the museum shop, and Richard and I had for long felt a need for such an item. (For those who don't know the joke, it runs along the lines of, ``When can you do such and such a thing?'' ``Oh, when I get a round tuit''). Unfortunately, the shop no longer stocked such things, and, not having time to go round the museum, we continued on our way empty-handed.
Richard had told his mother that we'd reach his house around 1pm, so when we were close to Northampton and found ourselves with plenty of time to spare, decided to head into Northampton via Richard's scenic route. We changed drivers at the Leicester Forest East services, and turned off the M1 a junction early in order to take Richard's route.
This took us through some picturesque villages, along some roads with rather unnecessarily low speed limits (much to the annoyance of drivers behind who had no intention of staying even close to the limits), and past the entrance to Althorp House, home of the Spencer family and where a certain princess is buried.
We arrived at Richard's house almost exactly on time, and were treated to a lunch of cold meat, salad and potatoes, indeed rather similar to the meal we'd eaten there two weeks previously. After lunch we worked out the finances for the trip with the aid of Richard's computer, and sorted out the necessary payments to even things out --- the totals seemed very reasonable.
After a quick check of the travel pages on teletext and a phone call to my parents to say we were on our way, Pauline and I left, around 2.30. Traffic on the motorways was quite dense, indeed at times we found ourselves coming to a near standstill, but overall made good progress and reached Farnham in about two hours. We stopped with less than a mile to go for petrol so that we could return it with the tank full, as we had received it, and arrived around 4.45 to the surprise of my parents, who had not expected us quite so soon.
Once again, we spent some time discussing the trip, including the incidents of the first day. Pauline again produced her slides, while I dug out my numerous postcards and guidebooks in order to better describe the trip --- the remainder of the photographs would have to wait. We calculated the overall mileage for the trip: about 2250 miles, with the car doing almost exactly 40 miles to the gallon, not at all bad.
Dinner that evening was interrupted briefly by some people coming to collect my parents' old cooker. I was called upon to move the car slightly in order to get the cooker past it (thankfully not having to move it far, as I'd had a glass or two of wine by that point), and to help lift the thing into the buyers' car, a task which would have been rather easier had they not had the aged parents of one of them sitting in the back --- in all it looked a rather precarious load.
We went to bed around 11pm, our journey almost over.