WHILST hammering up and down the A1 on mercy missions to daughter Bryony I began to feel rather hungry.

Bryony's baby is due on New Year's Eve, but because of problems with her blood pressure and ensuring that not too much of the care of grand daughter Jessica falls exclusively on her in-laws' shoulders, I have been going up to Newcastle to help. After all, the toddler's tour of the maternity wing, the toddlers, Christmas party, the toddler's Aqua tots Christmas splash and the toddler's Christmas Twisters bonanza, are all genuine festive necessities for toddler developmental opportunities, and farm and farmer abandonment.

Whilst on our long-forgotten holiday in France, John and I had commented on the cleanliness of the service areas on the main roads. "We have a lot to learn in this country," John said. And that coming from a farmer who would not have been out of place as one of the first volunteers to fight the French at Waterloo. However, apparently the services on the upper stretches of the A1 have decided that no one must be hungry after nine o'clock, and so, although for example the lights would on in a Little Chef, and there were staff around, the doors remained firmly locked to any passing traffic.

A McDonalds' sign hove into view. I veered off. Open until midnight. Great. I drove through a litter-strewn car park (the trash cans were all spilling over so presumably patrons thought it as well to throw their rubbish into the car park rather than have it fall out of the litter bins) and decided against eating in car, and opted for in McDonalds. My order therefore took a low priority. The entire staff seemed more interested in serving cars than people. Whilst I waited 15 minutes for my order to come, I decided to use some of the time and visit their toilet.

Stuck on the door of both Gents and Ladies was a tatty sign saying "Out of Order. Use Disable." A large yellow cone was also propped up against the door presumably to deter anyone who could not read the sign. The 'Disable' toilet was foul. Absolutely filthy. I mean the full splatter job. Retch. Was anyone interested? Nah. Not a bit.

After asking four times if anyone would clean the toilet, and watching one young lad go and throw a bucket of soapy water down the (lidless to add insult to possible injury) loo, but make no attempt to scrub of any offending material, I at last used my common sense and went into the barricaded Ladies. It was spotless. And working. And so, on inspection, was the Gents. It appeared that the cleaning up had been done earlier in the evening and rather than be bothered with doing it again later, they'd stuck the notices on the doors. There was a spare sign, too, because when a service door was opened, I saw another "Out of Order. Use Disable" sign, stuck on the inside of that door.

I left. Didn't bother with the meal, and as a final act of rebellion, took down both notices, moved the cones and restuck the Out of Order notices (without the Use Disable bit) on the door of the toilet for disabled people.

What joy. As I drove out, about 30 ladies from a coach party walked in. "Where's the loo," half of them were asking. I bet it was the staff, not the ladies, who'd be wetting themselves.

Updated: 10:04 Monday, December 22, 2003