Perhaps the most difficult aspect of anything in life, is getting started. Getting the motivation to begin. Just as I feel right now, staring blankly at my pencil notes from the weekend and wondering how to convert the scribbled words on the page into a readable blog entry. Having thought about it, I feel I should go back to the true beginning of this tale. The entry is recorded back on Saturday 14th January and ironically it was exactly three months later that I find myself waking up heading off to the what could be consider a dream destination for petrol heads. Everything had been packed the night before and I had everything laid down neatly on my desk, a file with all the important paperwork. I was ready, I was slightly tired but I was prepared. Pav text me in the morning and he was on his way. After an exchange of message, mainly about if there were final things he needed to check, his final phrase was ‘Wir Gehen Zum Nurburgring!’ I smiled as I read the message, even with my poor understanding of the language I could work out what he meant. The tension was building in my living room as I waited for him arrive, constantly looking out of the window at the drive, paying little attention to MTV Base. His M3 pulled up quick on my drive and I headed out with my travel case to his car. I was heading to Germany, this was really happening. First stop was for some fuel at my old work place, Shell Cressex. The petrol station had recently had a refit with a full purpose built coffee area to replace aging fridge in the corner. I paid for what would be my first of two fuel rations, knowing that we just needed enough to get to Dover as the fuel would be much cheaper on the continent. I took the opportunity to take some quick photographs of the clean car. After all my friend had slaved some of last night with a bucket and sponge to get the sports car looking ready for the drive. To the annoyance of the all the travel makers in the people carriers, I took a couple of pictures, while they waited in line for their fuel. We were on our way and heading in Dee’s postcode into the HP Jornada 568 running Tom Tom software and connected to a serial cable GPS kit, we hit the M40. The car sounded awesome and a mouthwatering prospect for the track. The potential of the weekend was slowly coming apparent, as Pav put his foot down on the motorway. There were more surprises to come though. We went over to Gerrards Cross and pulled up outside Dee’s beautiful house in suburban Buckinghamshire. We marked up in front of the bright red Civic Type-R, as Dee came out to welcome us in. Going to his room, Pav installed the Tom Tom software onto the Nokia 3660. This took slightly longer than expected, so I watched MTV Base (which was on) passing the time, waiting for Jav to arrive, late as usual I was informed. I feel to pieces in laughter while watching the trail for MTV Pimp My Ride UK. It is a classic with a pimply teenager watches the show and is inspired to do his own modifications. He goes into his sister’s bedroom and rips out the stereo from the wall, then he gets his plump friend to sit in the back seat of the Nova to lower the back! He takes the drainage pipe from the outside of the house and uses this as a heavy rear bumper. Pav and I laughed about it later on the drive to Dover but little did we know how much more we would laughing over the course of the weekend. We were still waiting for Jav and he called and I picked up Dee’s phone and spoke to him. He was leaving in a few minutes. Pav, meanwhile was having trouble installing the European maps onto the memory card on the phone. I should really be illustrating most of these points in photographs but I have still to sort them out. This afternoon at work I finally transferred the 469mb RAR file to Pav via FTP. Only after spanning into ten chunks of 50mb. After completing the upload which took about 25 minutes, I then began the download of Pav’s pictures. A 230mb RAR file, which I left downloading over night.

Let me get back on track and back to Friday morning. So around 10.30am, we packed the cars and headed out onto the M25. Initially Pav was going to lead but Jav wanted to over rule the sat nav for a few miles before we got onto the motorway, where we finally pushed out onto the fast lane and took over. We were on our way there and I was getting even more excited, but trying my best to keep the feelings inside. I opened the glove box to find the walkie talkies. We should have handed one receiver to Dee but were well on our way now, but hopefully at our first stop we would use them. As he happened, we stop for tea and a break at the local service station on the M25, just before the M20 turn off. It was hear the holiday truly began as we handed Dee the walkie talkie. He was like a young child in a sweet shop, loving every second. We headed back onto the wet, dull and grey motorway but knew that within less than an hour we would be boarding the ferry for France and our adventure could truly begin.

I have never really had walkie talkies in a long car journey before. Pav mentioned in February that he used them with his friend Tom, when traveling up the M1 to Leicester and they used it to clear each other to overtake vehicles and hammer it on the fast lane. Of course, there was almost exactly a month ago when I went to see Hussein in Harrow. Although that was a two mile drive down the road to the wash centre. This time around it was vital. The great things was we didn’t need to constantly call each other, we could make contact at quite long range and explain where we were on the motorway. Dee was loving, constantly buzzing me on the two way. We were using channel 2, and the quality was crystal clear. Although at times it was hard to comprehend what was said because the first part of the conversation was missed with the radio on so high. I had, perhaps rudely taken over the in car entertainment and tuned into BBC Radio One for the journey down to the coast.

Being able to quickly send each other messages about the traffic and weather conditions ahead and also confirm that both Tom Tom devices were pointing in the same direction made every difference. There was crazy fog as we got off the motorway onto the A20. You could just about see a few metres ahead of you but Pav continued out in the fast lane in the dual carriage with Jav’s 325 not that far behind. Sure enough a few minutes later, we could see those famous white cliffs (just about) through the fog and pulled around to the departure area. I grabbed my bag with our passports and paperwork and headed to check in. It was 12:44pm, according to Pav’s in car clock. Exactly an hour before our ferry was to depart these shores. After a few minutes we were issued with our boarding pass and headed for lane 157. Jav and Dee, right behind us got issued to lane 158, even though for a while I thought they were pulling my leg. We parked up and then finally, Pav started to get excited. We were boarding Gate 7 and there was a good few minutes before embarkation would start, plus with a stream of coaches to our left, it would be sometime before our lane was ushered on board. We boarded the Pride of Canterbury, one of the older ships in the P&O fleet. Making our way onto the deck to get some food, we realised it was extremely busy and the queue at the International Food Court was crazy. However after walking around the deck to find no where else available that served food, it was down to me to make a executive decision and return to the food court and get in lined. After lunch, we were informed by the captain that there were about ten minutes until the ferry would dock. We headed to the back of the ship and out on the upper decks. It was a blustery cold afternoon, with the sky still grey but the rain just holding off. A Nigerian tourist came up to me and asked me take his picture. Not once, but several times. First with his jacket on, then another without his jacket, then another two just to be sure. He was very courteous and genuinely happy that I had taken these pictures of him. I then took Pav’s camera, and went to the rear of the vessel and took some photos of the sea and my fellow travelers on this road trip. Heading back to our cars, I checked Pav’s in car clock and it was 3:04pm, I took a photograph. It was 4pm, local time and we had a good six hour journey ahead of us. Driving on the right. The 325 got let out first, so was several cars ahead by the time we left the portv, I have some news, fresh off the presses. Most people use their personal message block on MSN to say something silly or describe that they are aware from the computer and busy. I rarely use it, apart from the odd occasion to let people know I am watching football on television. On Tuesday in the week, Pav’s message changed to a alphanumeric combination and I messaged him straight away to find out if the change had taken place. He had only just received the documents but the plates would be made up later this week and fitted as soon as possible. On Wednesday I got sent an image via MSN of the rear plate but they were unfitted and had only just been printed. I had been pestering him most of the past few weeks to send me a picture the moment the plates were on the vehicle. Then, quite unexpectedly at thirteen minutes past minute this morning, Pav sent me the following attachment on e-mail, direct to my Hotmail account. Not sure about you, but that looks ultra cool and suits the car down to the ground. Bring on the Nuremburg Ring! On that note, enjoy the rest of your weekend.