Best way to enhance your day trip

1. COLLECT ODD SIGNS Not literally – photos will do! Keep your eyes open for odd notices and signs, out there in abundance. In Aberdeen there's an "Ali Barber", "Dickie Chemist", and "Pittodrie Podiatry Practice"; in Kirkcudbright, "Fish Kettles For Hire". "Members and bonified guests only" – that's from a bingo hall.

2. FREE LEAFLETS Pick up free leaflets. They're increasing all the time, detailing walks and trails and giving information about local people and places. For example there are leaflets about: Aberdeenshire's historic graveyards; town trails for Banff and Macduff; sections of the Fife Coastal Path and its towns and villages; and A Guide, Trail and Obscure History of Glasgow's Merchant City.

3. ROAD SIGN POEM "Found" poems are quite kosher. You take words you've found and arrange them into a poem. So, travelling by bus along the Perth-Dundee A90, note every name on road signs and put in line breaks (rearrange the order of the names if you wish).

"Forfar, Ladenford, Lour,
Memus, Cortachy, Glen Clova,
Battledykes, Birkenbush, Bogindollo,
Oathlaw, Justinhaugh, Bogardo."

Every road's a poem.

4. BUY A LOCAL PAPER These are a great way of learning something about the communities you visit. You'll find the almost-universal depressing stuff – the inanities of councils, alcohol-fuelled crime. But, balancing that, local papers are filled with stories of campaigns, voluntary groups and people who support them – the intermeshing networks which counter the forces tending towards societal disintegration.

5. EAT DANGEROUSLY Forget about the salt, sugar and saturated fat. Stop trying to convince yourself that healthy food tastes better. Days away are days for morning coffee with chocolate and fudge gateau dripping with double cream; lunches of burgers and chips; afternoon tea with caramel cheesecake; and a deep fried evening meal. If you normally eat unhealthily you can eat healthily for the day – but it's not the same!