long distance driving

We drove to Scotland for the half term.
Alarms rang at 6.15am on Saturday morning. Into the dark grey rain by 7am, onto the M6 by 9.25M... Great motoring.
So what does one take in a car to keep the children occupied for 7 hours of tarmac joy?
Well.
Food first and foremost.
Liz & I spent Friday pm boiling and mashing and mayonnaising eggs for the essential egg-sandwich travel munch. (Liz promptly refused to eat any the next day. Insisting on 'ham, cream cheese and cucumber, MUM, like I always have?' - where did she get the question mark dialogue from? Its like, yeah?) Egg sandwiches always bring a smile to the face - just when the back passengers get a whiff of the freshly opened egg sandwich container... If small children were allowed to swear, there'd be a major kick off: FUCKING HELL MUM YOUR SANDWICHES ARE TWATTING RANK. Or something. I think we have a few years left of not having to endure such language. (I'll keep you posted though.)
Crisps. Essential for dropping down the booster chairs and emptying on to the violating all public health measures car carpet (which are then eaten about 1 hour later when Liz or Mol remembers they're down there).
Chocolate. Great for bringing on huge life threatening thirsts. And for smearing all over car seats and faces. Liz usually gets it in her hair. A good look for the start of a holiday when you're never sure when the next hair wash will be.
Fruit. Especially tangerines. Peel. Everywhere. Pips galore.
Sweets. Great for causing huge fights in the back seats. How many have you got? How many have you had?  How old are you anyway? Do you deserve these? Mum, Mol has got 4 and I only have 1. etc.
So, food over and done with, there then have to be activities.
Activities are best if they don't involve the front passenger having to double-twist around in order to facilitate.
Forgetting that Liz cannot read, magazines (of the pink and fluffy animal variety) were purchased and given at 7am. By 7.15am, Liz had thrown hers on the floor (not yet covered in food debris) and sworn (not in an adult way) that she couldn't ever do it and it was smelly and a poo.
So, in reserve, having subconsciously been aware that this could be the case, a large pad of paper and a new set of Sainsburys cheapest felt tips were available.
Paper is great. Not only can you draw on it but you can also rip it into tiny little pieces. Hundreds and hundreds of them. And then drop them all over the discarded magazine (2 hours later - where's my magazine?) sticking to the freshly licked chocolate smears and generally scattering like dandruff from a Dulux dog.
Pens with lids are good too. Because the lids are always lost and fall on the floor or down cracks and then Liz gets the chance to shout (again) at Mol for being STUPID and the pens will all dry up if there are no lids and then Liz gets the chance to hit Mol and call her a big STUPID poo (for the 8th time).
Finally, cd's are a good thing to have. Especially when the boot of the car is SO full up that the back speakers are blocked by bags and tangerine peel, that the children demand it to be LOUDER (in union at this point) so that the adults who are admiring the views off the M6 and wondering how many miles to the gallon the old X-reg volvo really does, have to listen to Josephs Technicoloured Dream Coat full blast, for the 50th time.
Its quite good to try to get lost too - this adds a brilliant distraction to the rear-seats, who zone into parental gunfire - but on this journey we were too into the M6 to get lost.
Anyway. So, 7 hours later, the car in need of some sort of fumigation process, the children needing to be sent into a high-pressure-hose to remove tangerine peel chocolate pen lids cd-covers etc from most parts of their body, and parents in need of a high alcohol transfusion - we made it to Scotland.
Where it rained for 7 days.