We were in a different industrial estate by another lot of trucks (no. really). That was it. Frankly, we had gone far enough and we needed a map. We parked in a garage. David and I wandered in to the brightly lit shop, leaving Kate alone in the car. Needless to say, had this been a film, we would have exited to find that both Kate and the car had mysteriously vanished, and that no one - anywhere - had any memory of us (or something similarly sinister). For a second my confidence waned. What was I doing? I was in an unknown town stocking up on rations for a journey to nowhere in particular that was to last for an uncertain length of time. I turned to face the shop assistant. "Hell to it", I thought.

"Do you have a map", I inquired with no small amount of force.

"What sort?" asked the man behind the counter. He was big, stocky, not a little greasy, and smiling enough to suggest that we would survive to find out if we were in Cirencester at all.

"A big one. One of everywhere." David was laughing anxiously. A frail lad, he had envisioned something of an ogre as we had pulled up at the petrol station and was as yet unwilling to believe we were not about to lose our lives horribly for our small change. The actually very un-ogreish attendant pulled down a big map and said "£7.99 this one". I encouraged him to find me something cheaper, after which he offered me what looked like exactly the same sort of map in a different colour for £1.99. "115 per cent you see, this one. Bigger." I couldn't help being very obviously unimpressed but he continued:

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know. We aren't really decided on that yet. Actually, that's why we need a map. We are lost on the way to somewhere but we're not sure where."

The attendant stood and looked, for want of a better word, flummoxed. "Hmm," he said, "good for you. If you want to... " He struggled for a way to put it. He was stretching, I think and hope, for something admiring to say. The spirit of adventure, he wanted to tell us, was not dead. We were flying the flag for the modern day Mungo Park. "Do you need some more petrol then?" is what he said.

We left soon afterwards, having promised to see him on the way back or send a postcard. Oddly, he too had suggested Cornwall before he had rather unvaliantly started trying to make a fast buck out of our random spree. Kate and I agreed that we were now obliged to go to Cornwall. The signs were all there or something. It was like old Mungo finding the words "Canoe... Africa... Now" written in dirt on his doorstep. Well, it was like that until David explained that he really had to take some pills tomorrow morning and that he was really sorry but he needed to go back tonight and...

We sat down and ate a decent and inexpensive meal before setting off home to the utterly inappropriate sounds of Mungo Jerry's "In the Summertime". In a trip from one Mungo to another in a few hours and three caffeine-heavy drinks, we had enjoyed ourselves immeasurably. We hadn't gone anywhere important or achieved anything besides getting a meal (and we could have done that at home). But we had done that nothing with spirit, and with a bit of character. There was no real reason to set off and only the need for some sleep (and regular medication for David) had brought us home. Still, as we hit Oxford again (having somewhat disturbingly passed signs to a place called Bibury seven or so times) the city was now sulkily hiding behind curtains and watching television and the snow had subsided completely. We had done something totally worthless and wonderful and unlike Mungo Park we had survived to tell the tale. From this moment then, I am banning all maps from my car. I am going to be an English Jack Kerouac in the evenings when I feel like it and still hold a steady job in one place. I'm going to be a bouncing ball of a nomad, if you can tolerate that poorly considered image. See you, I guess, on an industrial estate somewhere. I'll be the one trying to follow someone who looks like they know where they're going.