Tuesday, August 28

Stage one, and much ado about Coal

I've just been working on the plan for the first part of my travels round the UK. My mate Mark is going to be joining me for this bit, so we had a chat over a few pints at the Crooked Billet about where we we wanted to go, and came up with the following plan:
  • Day 1: from Farnborough to Leeds, via the peak district and Chatsworth. I've driven through the grounds before but would really like to see inside the house itself.
  • Day 2: from Leeds to Newcastle via the North York Moors, and some odd "transporter bridge" that Mark thinks would be cool. Cool, as in, it gets us across a river without dunking the Maserati in the water, I hope.
  • Day 3: from Newcastle to Edinburgh via Lindisfarne. I've always wanted to see this, after reading about it in a book as a child.
  • Day 4: Edinburgh to Inverness taking in some fantastic Scottish scenery.
  • Day 5: Inverness to Glasgow via Fort William and Oban. A long day's driving and hopefully more great roads.
  • Day 6: Glasgow to Liverpool via Kilmarnock, Dumfries, Carlisle for a quick game of Laser Quest to tick another one off the list :), and the Lake District.
  • Day 7: Liverpool and Manchester.
  • Day 8: Manchester home to Farnborough, via Kidderminster, Leominster and Stratford-upon-Avon
I'm due back for a family meal on the 9th day, but then we'll head off for North Wales on day 10, and see where the roads and the winds take us for the next four days before arriving back in Farnborough for 8pm on day 14. This part's much more fluid in terms of where we'll be stopping overnight, but in some respects that's no bad thing.

As far as progress on getting the car goes, well, I've had some decent insurance quotes, I've worked out what needs to be done on the land behind the garage, and Mark and I chopped down much of the Leylandii hedge. I guess that counts for both of us as Community Service act of the week ;)

Oddly enough, while I was at the Crooked Billet it seems I've found a home for a quarter of a tonne of coal, which is sat in a concrete bunker behind the garage. I've found someone who will hopefully be able to take it off my hands, which is good, because I'll need to get the bunker itself shifted in order to get the Maserati off the road.

Monday, August 27

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog. I'm going to be posting here with updates on my travels around the UK and Australia over the next year. Hopefully it's an opportunity to keep in touch with everyone who knows me and share some of the experiences and great things I'll be seeing and doing.

Highlights for the coming week will be:
  • digging up the place to make room for my new method of transport, which unfortunately doesn't fit into the driveway due to ground clearance issues, and
  • my leaving drinks in London on Friday, which will be an opportunity to say goodbye and thanks to all the people I've been working with over the last few years at DB and CSC.
Thanks to Pete who suggested the idea of a blog; for an IT person, I'm surprisingly behind the times when it comes to thinking of these things ;)