On Wednesday we enquired about staying overnight in the car park of a pub called the Buck Inn. The arrangement for staying was to buy a meal and the menu looked good so we reserved a table and a parking spot and drove to a place called Flixton near the village of Bungay in the county of Suffolk. We still hadn’t found gas but as we were eating out, we probably wouldn’t need it.

We pulled into the car park in the late afternoon and Denis noticed that right next door was The Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum. We went to have a look. Unfortunately… they were closing and they wouldn’t be open again until Saturday. Like the National Trust, this museum was run by volunteers so the hours are restricted to volunteer hours. But they took pity on us (as we wouldn’t be here on Saturday) and said we could wander in after 9am the following morning as there would be someone working there. That sorted we went back to the van and Denis set about doing some work.

That’s when we realised the roaming phone data (for internet connection) was non existent. Never mind, the pub had wifi, we went in, ordered coffees from the really friendly staff and started work. But the wifi was disturbingly slow and the acoustics (from the small group of people present) were disturbingly unpleasant. I went back to the data free van and read a book – paper. Around 7pm we went for dinner and it was very good. There were two other couples in the dining room but I don’t like crowds so no complaints from me. Our young server commiserated with us about the data problem, he said he lived up the road and it was just as bad there.

Next morning I convinced Denis I’d rather clean the van than go to the museum so he went along on his own and really enjoyed it. He says it was huge and there were lots of people working on different projects and they were all very friendly. There was also a shop selling souvenirs and books. He said he could have spent a full day in there and not seen everything. Admission is by donation.

And then it was time to get the gas. Denis had rung a garage and the nice lady said she had gas at the moment but there was no way of knowing if she’d have it by the time we arrived. You see there’s no gauge… to tell if there was any LPG in their tank. They only knew for sure when it ran out and then they would ring the gas company but it could take a week for a delivery. Well that did explain why we were having difficulty – we were just unlucky. Fingers crossed this garage wouldn’t have run out. And it hadn’t! Well it hadn’t run out of gas but it had run out of petrol and diesel!

We were starting to think that the time warp of the first few days was back and we were now in the petrol strikes of the 1970’s. I think that’s when we decided it was time to call it a day and go home. We were still a long way from the ferry and I was glad of that because I was looking forward to seeing many more National Trust sites. Maybe if we lowered our expectations for getting the services we thought we needed for the next few days then all would be well.

Decision made we headed to Anglesey Abbey, Lode, Cambridgeshire, this National Trust site I mentioned last time had been owned by a family who earned their fortune from sewage systems.

Summary: You can be unlucky with LPG gas supplies. Data coverage isn’t great outside cities. Volunteering continues to flourish. A change of perspective can change everything. Query: Is phone data reliable where you live?

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