Road Trip!

I'm signing up for the Great British Banger Challenge...

...and I'm not giving up my vegetarian lifestyle! I enjoyed driving a van so much, that I'm seriously contemplating buying a car! And this facebook group is probably going to be the deciding factor.

So what's this Great British Banger Challenge about? If you enter the Challenge, you need to buy a car for less than £250 (I couldn't even afford a more expensive one if I wanted to), drag it home, fix it, decorate it, make sure it has valid tax, MOT and car insurance, and take it around Britain in 5 days. They say it's not a race – the challenge is to get there at all. Entry fee is £165, which will be used to arrange camping and the rest will be donated to charity (though it doesn't say what charity...)

The route will be:

Day 1 Cardiff to Carlisle
Day 2 Carlisle to Scarborough via Edingburgh
Day 3 Scarborough to SouthEnd-on-Sea
Day 4 SouthEnd-on-Sea to Weymouth (avoiding London)
Day 5 Weymouth to Cardiff

My budget for this hobby isn't particularly big, so I'll have to compare car insurance quotes to find the cheapest policy on the market. I might even have to exchange my Dutch drivers licence for a British one since having a foreign licence pushes up the quotes dramatically. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether my 4 years of experience will still be acknowledged if I switch. It wouldn't be very nice if I 'lost' those. Especially not if I can't 'get them back' if I change back to the Dutch licence again in the future! Anyone got experience with this?



(It took a while before I understood the song is about sat navs, haha, but isn't it a fantastic singalong? Got to love the Lancashire Hotpots!)

Backyard tragedy

Once upon a time, in the damp, dark soil underneath Cardiff Castle, a slender slug called Sulyen shed slimy tears.

“Sulyen,” said his lover Llewellyn, “why art thou crying?” His strong, stripy torso slid through the moist earth towards his sad friend.

“It is for thee that I cry,” replied Sulyen. “My internal organs are twisting with desire to bear you a child. But how can we rear a baby slug under these conditions?”

“Thou art right,” said Llewellyn, quickly retracting his tentacles at this revelation. “It is raining so much, yet there are hardly any fresh leaves or vegetables around. We end up getting wasted every night, and this is only summer! Autumn is yet to come! Much as I am attracted to you, Sulyen, it would be irresponsible to curl our private parts together with a view to laying eggs.”

“Oh Llewellyn, I wish I could control my feelings as well as thou can contain thine,” sighed Sulyen, sliding his slim mantle towards his large, muscular friend.

“Hold off!” said Llewellyn, “What part of 'no' don't thou understand?”

“It's the rain,” sniffed Sulyen, “I love thee dearly and do respect thy opinion... but I've had a bit too much to drink...”

Llewellyn curled his bulging body and pushed against the black, rain-soaked soil to get away from his broody buddy. But, despite his stout constitution, he couldn't escape Sulyen, who was more flexible and fuelled with desire.

“Why don't we leave the Castle and find ourselves a nice garden?” Sulyen asked his fleeing friend. “I hear vegetable growing is very popular these days...”

“But I love the Castle,” protested Llewellyn. “I enjoy getting drunk every night, and all my comrades live here!”

“We can have home-grown cabbage and lettuce ...” Sulyen's sensory tentacles tickled his mate's tail. “Is it not thy dream to sandwich an immature tomato plant with me?”

“I do love thee, Sulyen, but...”

“Then let us get out of here!”

“That's what I'm trying to do...” Llewellyn was panting already. “Promise not to touch me until we've found a good home for our children and I shall give thee all the offspring thou want.”

That night, when the heavenly shower was left on again, two slimy silhouettes crawled along the curbs of Cardiff – a stringy, stressed shape first, with a slim, sensual shadow following it's slime trail. Though slugs aren't known for their speed, they soon reached my back garden.

Llewellyn mounted the first pepper plant and hoped Sulyen would forget about their reproduction plans for the night now that they had reached such an abundance of food. Alas, Sulyen had no eye for the fresh green leaves, and only climbed the thin stem to ravish his friend.
When Llewellyn reached the top of the plant, he realized there was nowhere to go. He bit down hard in the green leaves when he felt Sulyen's silky schlong stroke his pneumostone, and knew he would never be able to enjoy the taste of pepper plant again. It seemed to take all night, and when Sulyen was finally done, it was starting to get light already. Llewellyn tried to seek shelter under an old handbag which, for some reason, had been left in the garden. But Sulyen still wouldn't leave him alone.

“Can I have some space, please,” Llewellyn begged, “I can't sleep like this.”

“I'm not done with thee yet,” said Sulyen. “I've given thee mine, but thou haven't given me thine yet. We are hermaphrodites after all.”

That morning, I was shocked to see how my plants had been abused. I made Freddie an omelet for breakfast, crushed the eggshells and spread them around my plants so that the slugs couldn't reach them again.

“We are in serious trouble now,” said Llewellyn. “A few days from now, I'll be giving birth to thirty little eggs. I'm starving already and now we can't even reach the fresh vegetables any more.”

“Don't worry, my love,” said Sulyen, “We shall go to the neighbours, I'm sure there will be plenty of food there. Follow me, big one.”

Poor Llewellyn felt like he had no choice, and followed the slender slug that had impregnated him.

“Come on, slow poke,” shouted Sulyen over his mantle. He had reached an opening in the wall to the next garden already and poked his head through it. “I think they even have a lawn, and flowers... paradise is this way!”

When Llewellyn finally reached the hole in the wall, half an hour later, all he saw was Sulyen's shiny body at the the end of the tunnel. “What's wrong?” he asked.

“I cannot move,” moaned Sulyen. “I was so hungry after yesterday's activity... I just took a bite of the first thing I saw... it must have been poisoned... I knew it smelled suspicious, but I was so hungry... I think I'm paralysed.”

Startled, Llewellyn began to crawl backwards.

“Don't leave me here!” shouted Sulyen. “It's thy fault I'm here in the first place! Thou made me do all the hard work, and didn't leave any of that pepper plant for me! Greedy cow!”

Though he could feel the sun on his mantle already, Llewellyn crossed my garden as quickly as he could, avoiding the sight of the scraggy pepper plant. He heard Sulyen sling a good deal of further insults at him, and didn't want to be there at noon, when the sun would start to blister his paralysed back.

Llewellyn wanted to go back to Castle, but he was heavy with pregnancy and grief. Though it had taken the two slugs no more than one night to reach my garden, two days later, Llewellyn still hadn't reached his home. He was hungry and thirsty and leaned against a courgette plant to catch his breath, when suddenly, he smelled something that made all of his glands ooze with delight. It was a slightly bitter, refreshing smell, so good that a mere whiff of it made him forget his sorrow.

The saucer of ale attracted the pregnant, dehydrated slug like a magnet. Llewellyn had no say in the matter and didn't even know what was happening to him when he slid head first into the liquid gold. He absorbed it like a sponge, drank more than he'd ever drank before, poisoning his parasitic eggs with alcohol. The next day, a woman with marigold gloves fished Llewellyn's inflated corpse out of the saucer and chucked him in a dustbin.

The other slugs at the castle thought Llewellyn and Sulyen never returned because they'd found themselves a lush garden and had started a happy family.

My first time in a British van

So, I've had my drivers licence since December 2006 and I moved to the UK in September 2008, but until I moved to Cardiff (August 2010), I'd never driven a car on the left side of the road. (Except for that one time I went back to Holland for a couple of days and ended up facing the back of the traffic lights, but I'd rather not talk about that.)

Last time Freddie and I moved (from our lovely mansion in Uxbridge to the House of Horrors in Harrow) we hired a man with a van. This time, we decided not to bring the wardrobe, bed, cooker and all those other big pieces of furniture; a mate helped us get the motorbike and a chest of drawers full of undies, socks and shirts up here; but we still needed to rent a van for the rest of our clothing, bicycles, duvet, Freddie's weights, cookery stuff, tomato and pepper seedlings... you get the gist.

I decided to rent an old Ford Transit for the weekend via selfdrivevanhirelondon.co.uk because it was the cheapest option. Their insurance, however, was shit – basically I would have to pay for any damage under £700 and I couldn't get any extra cover. Don't get me wrong – I'm not an irresponsible driver and I respect the road, but I'd never driven in Britain before, and I'm used to small cars like my mum's Peugeot 206cc – not vans with the steering wheel at the right side of the car! So I was bricking it just thinking of driving without any useful insurance.

Several sleepless hours later, I gave my credit card details to insuremyvanhire.com, an innovative website that sells full AXA Car Insurance cover for the duration of your car rental. I was happy as Larry with this find - and still am, even though I didn't add a scratch to the ramshackle old Transit, because it made me feel so much more confident.

I found staying on the left side of the road the easiest thing in the world (of course I did have lots of practice on my bicycle). Still, Freddie said the first twenty minutes were possibly the most frightening moments of his life. I blame this on the gear stick, which was knackered and made it virtually impossible to shift gears fluently. Also, I kept asking him to look out of the left window and tell me whether I was getting too close to the curb/cars/cyclists, which must have given him the impression I had no idea what I was doing. Though I didn't commit any serious offences, I certainly upset a lot of other drivers by not being quick enough. But after I left Central London, I was starting to get the hang of it and I soon didn't even have to mouth apologies at other drivers any more! We left London Saturday night at midnight and because I had to hand in the van on Monday morning, I decided to leave the house in Cardiff at 4 am Monday morning - about a day after we arrived.

The drive home as much fun - radio on full blast, pedal to the metal and a bottle of Boost on my lap - as getting stuck in traffic round the corner from the rental company was aggravating. I think I spent more time in the city than on the M4! What made it even worse was that I thought I had to pay for congestion charge before entering the zone, which made me leave the motorway prematurely. This time, I fully understood why drivers had been shouting at me when I was driving too slowly or making it impossible for them to overtake earlier. I have to admit I was quite tempted to make some impolite gestures at clumsy drivers myself. But if they're not doing it on purpose, what's the point in making them feel bad? Road rage will only increase your own stress levels, and it's not like it's going to make you get to your destination any quicker. So instead of shouting at other drivers, I sang along with Metallica and the Offspring to let off steam and behaved like a decent driver. Hell, I even wore a seatbelt at all times – unlike this dude Kevin, who appeared on Cab Cam, a campaign against road rage.

You may have noticed this is a Sponsored Post. Since I quit my full time job in order to write my second novel, I'm happy to make some extra money with my blog. That doesn't mean I've lost my integrity or autonomy, though. I'll choose my sponsors carefully. I was planning to write about my first experience with driving in Britain anyway and I did take out that AXA van insurance. And I do think AXA Respect On The Road campaign is worth a like on Facebook – because it's funny and it shows what a silly thing road rage is:

Fresh soil

From crazy Halloween house parties in Notting Hill to sipping free champagne at Proud Camden's second birthday party; from shopping for second hand silk at Bricklane Market to drinking free cocktails at the Paramount bar on the top floor of Centre Point; from camping in Epping forest when it was snowing in January to indulging in free drinks on the roof terrace of club Aqua; from writing a novel in a pub on Portobello road to working full time as a copywriter on Tottenham Court Road – yes, over the last two years, I've seen many different sides of London (and had a fortune worth of free drinks). I didn't always have the time to blog about my experiences, but I can assure you: Debbie Did London.

London was fabulous, but it's time for fresh soil. I quit my job and moved to Cardiff last Saturday, to write my second novel. And yes, I've seen a lot of sheep and mountains already (drove up to the Brecon Beacons twice), but I've also spotted lots of students, cool clubs, fancy restaurants, cosy pubs and art centrers. I'm sure there will be plenty of interesting people, places and parties to write about. That's why I updated the header of my blog: Debbie Does Britain!

The first interesting place I would like to introduce to you is, of course, my new house. My garden, to be precise. Perhaps you remember that my mansion in Uxbridge had a lush lawn, a massive fig tree and tomatoes growing out of the cracks in pavement. I was a bit disappointed when I found out that my garden in Harrow mainly consisted of brambles and nettles overgrowing slabs of concrete, but Freddie and I found one spot that seemed suitable for growing vegetables, and worked hard to prepare it for our tomato and pepper seedlings. I even remember some crazy night gardening...
I don't know why, but the first batch of toms that I planted out there didn't survive. I watered them often enough, but the soil only seemed suitable for nettles. Because I didn't want to kill all my other seedlings, I planted them in beer cans, yoghurt pots and butter tubs and started giving them away to friends. I even left two pepper plants in the office in Central London!

When Freddie and I took most of our things to Wales with the van (I'll write about driving in Britain some other time), there were only a few tomato and pepper plants left. They'd been in their beer cans for way too long and most of the poor things didn't have enough root space to start growing fruits, but they were alive and, with some extra care and Welsh rain, there's still hope for them. In my new garden, I've got a huge pear tree and a lot of space for barbecuing or playing football, but there are no patches of soil suitable for growing vegetables. So I went to the local gardening centre to buy two sacks of compost and found myself some bigger plant pots...