Sweep knocked over the cubs in his rush to be first in the queue. He loved eggy bread, and he supposed the eggs had to come from somewhere, so why not? He was a bit of a piggy Sweep and had two slices of eggy bread, all hot and crisp from the pan. It gave him a lovely feeling of eggy-bread-ness, which is a much better feeling than plain old eggyness.
After the eggy bread and the washing up, Auntie Angela announced that she wanted to go to a very special place for the afternoon. It was a big place called "Tray Go Mills", or something like that anyway. Sweep thought that sounded exciting. Mills must be where Millers came from, so perhaps he'd see where Lynne and Keith were made - that would be fun!
It was a long drive in the car, through lots and lots of nothing. Sweep couldn't see much of the nothing though, because it was a bit misty. Mister Fog had come to visit for the morning. But as they got further away from the Big Blue Wet Thing, it got less misty and more sunny, until after a while Sweep was getting quite hot.
Luckily, they were nearly at Tray Go Mills. Sweep understood the Mills bit - obviously this was where they made Lynnes and Keiths - but he wondered about the Tray Go bit. When they got there, however, he realised what it must be about, because they went into the cafe part to get some lunch, and when you got to the counter, you had to take a tray and then go to sit down. So that was that sorted out then. (Sweep did spot lots of signs that said "Trago Mills", but he didn't like to say that they couldn't spell, because that might be rude. Instead, he had a milkshake).
When everyone had finished lunch, it was time to go inside. Sweep had been looking forward to seeing where Lynne and Keith were made, but when they got inside it seemed to be a huge shop full of all sorts of things, but he couldn't see any machinery for making Lynnes and Keiths. "Perhaps it's out the back in another shed" he thought. Anyway, this shoppy part was full of people and lots of children - they were all doing their impressions of baboons (they were quite good at it) - but Sweep was getting a bit tired after his lunch, so he snuggled down into Uncle Bill's backpack to have a nap. He wasn't hiding from all the rowdy children though - that thought would never cross Sweep's mind, not at all, not never.
When it was time to leave, Sweep was just waking up - he was pleased that he'd missed the entire time in the shops, but he didn't say anything to Auntie Angela in case she thought he wasn't having fun. They got back in the car and drove to another place where there was a supermarket, to buy things for tea. Sweep spotted some lovely jam-and-cream muffins which he pointed out to Auntie Angela, but she was a bit distracted so Uncle Bill just slipped them into the basket and gave Sweep a wink.
They drove back home to the tent through all that nothing again, which was now looking quite lovely, as nothing goes. When they got back to the tent it was a bit drizzly, so they went inside and got the kettle on for hot drinks. After that, Uncle Bill got his chopper out and began cutting up the vegetables for tea, while Auntie Angela put some pasta on to boil. Then she cooked up all the lovely vegetables that Uncle Bill had cut up with his chopper, and added all kinds of lovely herbs and spices and things, to make a sauce for the pasta. They all had some, and it was lovely. Sweep especially liked the spanish sausage that Auntie Angela had put in - it was very tasty. Afterwards, they had the jam-and-cream muffins and felt very satisfied. They sent the cubs off to wash the dishes, and Sweep decided to lie back and think of the wonderful day he'd had.
Shame he still didn't know how little Millers were made though - maybe another day...
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