WE ARE driving home from our camping holiday in Cornwall, and seem to have been on the road for several lifetimes before we eventually hit Exeter and the M5.

Driving back from your jollies is never as much fun as driving there, obviously. We are trundling up the motorway, the car stuffed with the accoutrements of camping, a roofbox on top and towing a trailer borrowed off my Uncle Ronnie.

This is the fourth year we have enjoyed a camping holiday, and each time we seem to require more and more stuff. The first year - God only knows how - we did it with just the car. Then the roofbox. Then we availed ourselves of Uncle Ronnie’s generosity.

Next year we’ll probably need a Routemaster, and can sing the old Double Deckers theme tune, me parping the horn at appropriate moments in full Melvyn Hayes mode.

But for now we are fully laden and rolling up the M5. Fully laden in more ways than one, as we need a comfort break. We spy a sign for the next services. It is Cullompton.

Dear reader, I don’t know if you have ever experienced Cullompton services. It might be very nice; I wouldn’t know.

Driving into a busy service station towing a trailer is stressful at the best of times, well it is for me. You need two parking spaces one in front of the other, or the place where they park caravans and HGVs. We entered Cullompton and found ourselves following directions for the car park which took us under one of those maximum headroom signs.

The car, roofbox and all, passed under fine. Then we came to a very tight mini roundabout which led to a concrete multi-storey car park. On a motorway service station. I know. Go figure.

Attempting to negotiate the roundabout, I had misgivings about the height of the car park entrance. Mrs B got out and informed me that we weren’t going to make it under, despite passing the max headroom portal fine. The mini roundabout was too tight to pull around. I had to reverse.

Reversing with a trailer makes me come out in hives, because you have to counter-intuitively turn the steering wheel the wrong way to get your trailer to go the right way. After several hours on the road, with a queue of traffic behind me waiting to get to the car park, sweating like a pig, I could not wrap my head around this.

There was a terrible crunch. It turned out it was just the trailer twisting so badly I hit it with my own car. We eventually managed to leave without even getting out. I told the kids to cross their legs until the next services.

I’m sure Cullompton is a nice place, but I doubt I’ll be going again, unless I’m travelling very light - or on foot.