In the foyer of the building where I work, there’s a Tony Cragg sculpture. I think of this when asked about our big trip which starts very soon. ‘Where are you looking forward to going to most of all?’ is a frequent question.

Why I’m reminded of the sculpture is because  I first heard of Cragg a couple of years back just after we bought the van. We took it out for a drive into deepest Surrey and stumbled upon the Cass Sculpture Foundation in Goodwood. It’s an amazing place and we idled a pleasant few hours wandering through the parkland dotted with  massive sculptures, including some by Cragg. Reading up about him in the visitor centre, I discovered he had a piece on display in my office block. Really?

So that Monday I went through the foyer as usual but this time looked around me and there it was – an enormous stainless steel construction spiralling up the ceiling. I’d been passing it every morning without seeing it, while doing the commuter juggle of  walking, texting, fumbling in bag for security pass and sipping skinny americano.

I went up to it, read that it was called Constant Change, studied it for a few minutes and thought about how important it is to just stop sometimes and smell the flowers and how it had taken the van to bring us to a place miles away to see something I’d been oblivious to every morning of my working week.

Back at my desk I passed on this deep, philosophical insight to my colleague. ‘Oh yeah,  the thing with all the faces,’ he said. ‘Faces? Really?  I say. I went back to have another look.

Anyway, that’s the answer to the question what are we looking forward to seeing most on our van journey which will cover 21 countries. It’s wherever we happen to be. Except now we will have time to stop and see.

Ok enough of that.