{"id":5377,"date":"2026-08-14T09:23:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/?p=5377"},"modified":"2026-08-15T09:24:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T09:24:45","slug":"were-heading-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/?p=5377","title":{"rendered":"We&#8217;re Heading North"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re on the road again.<\/p>\n<p>For how long, we\u2019re not entirely sure. The vague plan is to make our way up to Scotland, have a look around, and see how we feel. So, about as organised as usual.<\/p>\n<p>For some reason, our first day on the road turned into a tour of British supermarkets.<br \/>\nFirst stop was Lidl to stock up on supplies. From there, we went to visit Mich, who is currently off work with sciatica, before hitting the road.<\/p>\n<p>Quite why we thought setting off in the middle of the school holidays was a good idea, I\u2019m not sure.<br \/>\nThe roads were packed. Roadworks seemed to be everywhere, sections of motorway were closed, and we had no choice but to take the back roads.<\/p>\n<p>Normally, we love the back roads. In Spain and Portugal they\u2019d taken us through tiny villages, over mountains and along roads where we could drive for miles without seeing another car.<\/p>\n<p>England is slightly different.<\/p>\n<p>Here, there are other cars on them.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually we made it to supermarket number two: Tesco, for a sandwich and snack deal. Proper road-trip cuisine.<\/p>\n<p>Then we sat in some more traffic.<\/p>\n<p>As we drove through Bradford on Avon, the air suddenly became thick with smoke. There had been wildfires breaking out around the UK, and driving through the haze was a little unnerving. I was starting to wonder whether this was really the best time to be setting off on a road trip.<\/p>\n<p>The plan for the night was Ludlow, but somewhere just south of Gloucester we hit yet another traffic jam. As I stared at the map, I suddenly realised we were going to be passing quite close to Matt and Sonia\u2019s place.<br \/>\nMike gave Matt a call.<\/p>\n<p>And just like that, Ludlow was abandoned and we were heading to see them instead.<\/p>\n<p>Via Aldi, obviously, to get beer.<\/p>\n<p>Three supermarkets in one day. We know how to travel.<\/p>\n<p>It turned out to be a really nice change of plan. Instead of spending the evening looking for somewhere to stop for the night, we got to catch up with Matt and Sonia, and even had a proper bed to sleep in.<\/p>\n<p>Scotland will just have to wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re on the road again. For how long, we\u2019re not entirely sure. The vague plan is to make our way up to Scotland, have a look around, and see how we feel. So, about as organised as usual. For some &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/?p=5377\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7qMoz-1oJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5377"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5378,"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5377\/revisions\/5378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}