The final few days, and the first day of travelling

So here I am, sat in Julian outside my parents house with the sun shining and the birds singing and feeling all well and good :)

I haven't blogged for days because it has been so hectic what with parties and leaving meals and all the lovely people being around, not to mention another FULL day packing Thomas and the trailer, but I hadn't forgotten about you so I took some pictures and now, in a monster post, I am going to catch up on everything which happened...

*sound of a tape rewinding at high speed*

Sassy's cage, prepared

So, Thursday I left work, picked Sassy up and the final few little bits, gave J a hug goodbye and headed towards the studio. My aim was to get a fair few things done that evening but by the time I got there it was so dark (and with my light broken) I set my roof box plans aside. One thing did get done, a very grumpy Sassy got introduced to her new cage and she proceeded to sulk for hours and hours, even growling at me; I don't think she was very happy to be uprooted like that.

Grumpy Sassy

The next morning (Friday) I was up and off to Tesco for 10am to do the shopping trip to end all shopping trips and buy up food and other provisions for the journey. £150 later and a full shopping trolley I headed over to the butchers to buy the big pack of bacon (bacon and egg butty every morning is the plan; how awesome) and I grabbed some hot meats and a egg and tomato quiche  for my breakfast then returned to the studio and ate.

Shopping trip

After this the real effort of the day started as I began to put things into the back of Thomas; if you remember I had piled the items which had previously been in him on one pallet so I could just put them straight back in however I realised as I started that I had changed my mind.

First of all I decided that the bikes were not going to go on Thomas' roof as I wanted to put the other roof box on there, and just strap the bikes onto Julian's roof. This meant that a load of the lighter boxes (with model aeroplane kits in; oh yes) would go into the roof boxes to keep them light, and I could stuff Thomas with all the heavy stuff like the books and DVDs and this actually worked really well as I put far more stuff in there than I had planned, leaving the trailer AND Julian lighter; success.

The records went in well on the back seat, along with my TV and some large pictures and then I put more and more things in there; a suitcase, a carved thinker statue, various boxes of rubbish and eventually I was struggling to shut the door so I stopped. Literally. It had taken a lot out of me as a lot of the heavy things were in the back and I had been climbing in and out of the truck bed to pack things most efficiently.

Perfect aim (as always)

After a short rest break with a cuppa I went back and did some AWESOME reversing to get the hitch on Thomas right next to the trailer. This was a total fluke but I'll keep it; I just had to pull the trailer an inch or two round and it dropped right on. I had been a bit worried about how difficult it would be to do this process so it was great to have it so seamless.

I haven't got any pictures of loading the trailer as I've taken them loads already however suffice to say it was a hard task which took most of the afternoon to complete; I did have one unexpected complication which was my whisky cabinet would not fit anywhere so I've had to take it apart; not the end of the world but a little frustrating.

On the roof, like a boss

I had a little lay down for half an hour or so after finishing the trailer packing as I was even more exhausted, and then Dan became available to help with the roof box on Julian, and getting the bikes up there. The first was accomplished without much hassle but the bikes were harder as we had to lift them up and strap them down.

The bikes are securely secured

After much fun and a few mistakes we had managed to lash both of them on really well and I think they won't shift at all until we get out there. I am looking forward to maybe renovating my lovely old off road bike so I can ride him on some of the mountain trails in Bulgaria.

Finally for my packing (and this was about 6pm and people had already arrived for my party!) I fitted the roof box to Thomas, and also locked the ladder onto him, and then filled the roof box with toy planes and other assorted stuff. At this time I finally gave in and went and freshened up, changed and grabbed a beer.

From this point on it all gets a bit hazy, as I'm sure you can understand. I have a selection of photographs below taken by myself and others who made it to the party, but I can remember dancing a lot, running around and talking to loads of people, feeling really amazed at how many and who had turned up, and drinking lots of beer and whisky.

Drunken dancing

Me with two of the twitterati

There is whisky in the cup; honest

Me with the sharpest dressed man in the room

At some point in the night it became imperative that we leave the confines of the studio and make our way over to a nightclub in Blackpool called "Flares". If I think my memory of the party at the studio is blurry then from this point on it does all become a faint vague memory. A few highlights include dancing like a mong, getting a couple of roses (not sure who from though), having some balloons tied to my wrist and finally getting into my old local takeaway and being recognised and getting the locals discount. As per, a collection of pics below.

Is THIS the best selfie EVAH

Smooth dancing skills

Only I am looking at the correct camera

Ooops I bombed it

I'm gonna miss this man

The party ended with a small group of people sitting around in the studio talking and eventually I slid into Julian at about 5am and slept straight through until I was woken up by my phone going at 10.30 by my mate who had stayed the night. In all seriousness I am really happy he did this as I got three pints of tea down my neck sharpish and my hangover really never developed.

Hungover face

Saturday had been put aside as a rest and recovery day and (my mate did loads and) I did a desultory bit of tidying before Dan turned up and, muttering a lot, proceeded to finish off the task for me. He is likely to never let me forget that he had to tidy up after my leaving do; I just think he's probably so happy to get rid of me the pain of having to do it will pass quickly.

T and J jamming away

One of my other best mates turned up a little later and we had a great afternoon of jamming and chatting and a few more people came past and before you knew it the time had come to head over to Tiramisu, my favourite restaurant in Blackpool, for my leaving meal with family and much loved ones.

The end of the leaving meal

This was a really lovely occasion; the food was excellent as always and my favourite waiter was on form as always. All in all the evening rounded off what has been a wonderful few days of friends and fun. There are few things I will miss about England; the main one is the people around me who have proven themselves over and over to be wonderful people.

When I eventually got to try and sleep in Julian I was disturbed by Sassy. It was mainly my fault as I felt bad having left her in the cage all that time and I decided to let her out. First of all I had to construct a barrier so she couldn't get into the cabin and this required getting the screwdriver out. Then she went straight under the table and I remembered there was a power cable so I walled that off but as I was doing it I saw that in the 30 seconds she'd been under there she had used it for her toilet; the only carpet in the entire camper! Typical. So I was there cleaning that mess up. After all this, and about 30 mins of laying in the bed panicking she had jumped into the drivers seat area I got up, put her in her cage, and fell straight to sleep.

And so we get to today (what a crazy long blog; I'm sorry I'll keep them shorter from now on....)

I woke at 7am with the alarm and dragged myself pretty quickly out of bed and got on with the tasks I had to do. These were pretty basic such as gather the gifts I had been given the night before and stash them, split the bacon up into the takeaway boxes one per day and update the sat nav with the latest maps. Oh, and pay myself so some of this may actually happen.

Super pump in action

I pulled Thomas and the trailer out of his parking space, and swung Julian round next to him, so we were fully ready for leaving and then got the pump out of the Laycorn box and put air in a few of the tyres which were a little low.

Here we go, here we go... here we GOOO!!

Almost before you knew it the time for leaving was upon us (dead on 10, as you'll know that was when my count down timer stopped) and Dan had turned up by this time so we had a little staged "waving as we drive" picture and then, after making them stand around until exactly the right time, we started our drive.

This was largely uneventful and we got to the first driver change over point without any real problems. That is, until I tried to stop Julian and found that he would not slow down easily. I had to stand on the breaks to stop him and then the engine revved alarmingly when I put him in neutral. Hmmmmm. I got a little confused and thought that my parents were ready to head off again after our brief stop and started him up and once again he revved massively high so I threw him into gear and lurched off... leaving my dad stood wondering what was going on and waiting for my mum to get back from wherever she had gone.

After a few miles of chatting about the symptoms I decided to stop him on the hard shoulder and check if the accelerator throttle was sticky; cjc concurred and so we did. This would also have the benefit of giving my parents time to catch up. First of all I got my hands dirty fiddling with leaving and pullies in the engine and I found the problem, squirted WD40 all over as much of the assembly as I could, and started him up again; he was not over revving. Success. And the parents had pulled up behind us.

At the next stop I was slightly worried again about the revving issue however he was good as gold and actually hasn't exhibited this problem since. I think I can put that one down as an "I fixed a car by the side of the road" moment.

An old man being overtaken by a bearded man

We are not moving fast; 50mph is about top speed (and the trailer is only rated to that anyway) so we were much amused to overtake a car on the motorway. Not the slowest moving vehicle (by much anyway).

We arrived in Birmingham and had some food and then it was time for cjc to go get a train and leave us to continue this journey on our own. It was so lovely to have him join us though and I am pleased we worked it out like that.

Sassy, this evening

And so you find me, now sat in the dark with the lights on in the back of Julian, Sassy stretched out on the floor under my legs (and hopefully less sulky) and about 10 minutes away from collapsing into bed; it's an early start tomorrow; 5am probably so we can get on the road and make Oxford before the rush hour gets bad. Ferry from Dover to Calais and another few hours driving on that side of the channel and I'll be back on your screen, typing like mad and watching the batteries diminish.

It is so exciting to finally be on my way, and to have had such a lovely first day with gorgeous weather and good company. Tomorrow we start into our standard seating of me driving Julian, and my parents alternating between driving Thomas, and sitting in with me.

Night night all, I'm shattered.