Are motorway service stations ever good places to eat?

Apparently not. But I did once have a pretty good tuna sandwich at the Westmorland Services on the M6 in Cumbria. It's the only motorway service station owned by a small local company, and prides itself on its local food, and views over the duck pond. You can tell the difference...we stopped at Gretna Green this weekend, and aside from the very sinister giant stuffed rabbits at the newsagents and the boxes of obligatory Scottish shortbread, what stood out most prominently was the delights of Burger King. Don't get me wrong, one of the highlights of travelling is to occasionally stop for some junk food (hence the bizarre pink shrimp sweets currently lurking in the Smart car glovebox), but some real choice is hard to find.

Speaking of travelling, we've decided our pie-man.com challenge for this year is to always take a pie with us when we're travelling, or find one en route. So far, lamb oggys in Usk (Wales) very good, Aberdeen Angus scotch pie in Glasgow not bad either. Pics and reviews to follow on the pie site soon.