Driving through Europe, slowly.

Okay, the update so far:

Saturday lunchtime: left Hyde Park and immediately took the wrong lane due to heavy traffic, thereby adding a good 30 minutes to our journey out of London as we circumnavigated the streets of Kensington. Convoyed with Rachel in her Suzuki Jeep (soft top, noisy, duct-taped and a top speed of 60 to avoid head gasket problems) and with Red Heroes Dean and John in their SJ (crawling a bit, not running at its best). The micra can reach 80 mph (85 downhill) and is the daddy. We see a bunch of other rally micras bombing along at the same speed.

Saturday evening: arrive half an hour early for the Channel Tunnel and get an earlier train. It's like driving onto the lorry in Knightrider. We meet Monkey and X on their wee bikes when we reach the petrol station on the other side.

Saturday sometime during the night: we push the Red Heroes through a toll booth. A few kilometres later they break down on a motorway bridge. We get to use our hazard traingle and viz vest for the first time. It's very dark and rather remote, so instant exhaust surgery is carried out, the exhaust is partly removed and strapped to the roof, and we drive on. Their speedo is bust and we relay information to them via walkie takies.
"Feckin' Irish Rovers, can we have a speed check please?"
"That's a forty, Red Heroes, four zero. That's 3 mph faster than a monkey bike."

We plough on. At the next toll booth, Maso and Aaron speed ahead in the Micra while the remainder of us bring up the rear in the SJs. About 50 yards through the toll booth the Red Heroes' SJ loses all acceleration. We pull into a car park (with, fortunately, a toilet block). I spend the night holding a maglite as Dean strips the engine. It's raining and dark and the toilet block is pumping out hideous French pop music. There is no garage and no shop for miles, and Maso and Aaron have disappeared, and I have borrowed Maso's coat and his phone is in the pocket.

As we watch the sun rise over the Champagne region Dean spots the problem - the timing's out and the key in the bottom crank shaft pulley is warped. I have gone from understanding nothing about cars to learning a good bit (but not how to fix as yet) about exhausts, carbourettors and cam belts. I'm finding it fascinating and want to know more. However, we haven't slept since we left London, though we've discovered some amazing (legal, just) stay awake tablets. Still no sign of Maso and Aaron.

Maso and Aaron appear after dawn. They've been driving in circles through farms and crossroads, trying to double back (the French don't believe in in roundabouts after slip roads and a return journey on the same stretch of motorway is a near impossibility). A 10 mile return trip became 190 miles long. They are both banned from future map reading, though they insist it wasn't their fault.

As the sun rose higher we found an A-Team style solution - fashion the requisite pin out of cannibalised bits and pieces. Bewteen us we had a selection of tools, some hacksaw blades and some old bits of metal. We set up Base Camp 1.0 and Dean spends hours carefully filing down an old screwdriver to the right shape. After many careful hours of filing and fitting the engine was started and... power returned! We set off again feeling hugely optimistic and wired up on yet more antisleepy tablets. So far, so good...

...until we reach Verdun. No SJ behind us. We pull off the motorway to yet another toolbooth. A frantic phonecall comes through - they're stuck at the last junction. Rachael is dispatched to get them and I find some people at the toolbooth to talk to in mangled A-Level French. After much explanation we send a motorway security man to them and also arrange for the police to phone a tow-truck. I learn the French for scrapyard. We wait. And wait. Eventually the tow-truck, with SJ loaded on the back, zooms past us and an hour later the other SJ returns. We are all knackerd and haven't slept in 55 hours and the drugs are wearing off. Maso is close to declaring war on France. The Micra is still going fine. After an hour of driving round Verdun we find an F1 hotel - basic but very necessary. We are grateful for the rest. And the showers.

Monday morning: Maso is determined to reach Prague so we leave Dean, John and Rachael to sort out the scrapping of the SJ. It is rather likely that they will arrive in Prague minus one team member... We speed on (autobahns are a gift from the gods of motoring) and manage to get through Germany without once buying petrol. After one stint of driving I take a nap in the back seat leaving Aaron and Maso to navigate. When I wake up, we are lost. I curse them resoundly and swear never to sleep again. How can you get lost on the E50?

Prague! We reach Prague! The hotel car park has a fleet of (well, two) rally cars in it - the Crimson Monkeys' Bedford van and the Green Team's 2CV, both broken (wheel came off on the motorway on the former, something bad but unknown has happened to the latter). Varnish's Polo is somwhere in a garage - he drove the last 400 km here with only a handbrake to stop the car - his brakes have gone. We also met a team from Wales with the same problem, plus they failed a drug test at the Czech border and were strip searched, detained for 24 hours and forcibly blood tested.

And the Micra is absolutely fine. Oh no, wait - we had to cable-tie a bit of the bumper.

So yes, we're in Prague. Because we arrived a day late we had no hotel booking and two hotels turned us away before we found one with a cancellation (they all looked at us like we were dirt - I have never been anywhere with more unfriendly hotels). We've had a good breakfast and now we're waiting for the others to catch up and fix cars, then it's on in mass convoy to Chernobyl in the Ukraine.

I'm loving the whole thing. It's fantastic. It's the most amazing adventure. I can't wait to learn more about cars - I'm turning into a petrolhead. Oh, and if I ever buy a car it'll be a K11 Nissan Micra.

Ready, steady, go...

After the chaos of the last few days (tractor show, donkey derby, hunting down a car, talking to the radio (cheers, Uncle Hugo and Ferry FM), papers and TV people (nice one, BBC news), photo shoots galore (thanks, Belfast Telegraph and Newtownards Chronicle), collecting money (Aaron has a gift for sweet talking), packing and leading the pram race) we're finally ready to go. The days were creeping past and then suddenly it was like a scene from 24 - what time is it? Who are we meeting next? What do we still have to do?

We had our send off in the Square in Portaferry last night - hordes of people wishing us well and giving us money - where we headed the pram race, with police bike escort, round a loop of the town. This was followed by a hugely successful Night at the Races ably run by Donal from Mulsanne Casinos. It was the first time I'd seen grown men and women screeching at a DVD for their horse to win, but eight lucky people did win 40 quid each, and someone even picked up the grand prize of £77.50 on the auction race. My mammy's horse, The Bookkeeper (spot the gambling librarian), galloped home at 2 to 1, and she was very excited about that. We're delighted that our friendly pharmacist, John, was a multiple winner with his horses - he supplied us with a huge box of first aid goodies yesterday making him our favourite local legal drug dealer. I only hope we don't have to use half the stuff he's given us...

After cashing up and bagging coins and swapping change at the bar we'd made over £400, probably more, and over the whole of Gala Week had easily lifted a grand. People have been fantastic in their support. It's no wonder Northern Ireland is one of the most charitable places in the world.

So here we are, ready (just about) to depart for Belfast, pick up a few odds and ends, eat the condemned man's hearty breakfast at Ten Square and then hit the road. I am utterly calm despite my lack of sleep last night, and yes, a little excited too. Next stop, London.

No more office 'til the end of August

It's all getting very real - I set my vacation autoresponse on my work email yesterday and closed the door of my office for the last time until the end of August. That does not, however, mean I've finished work, and was up to midnight yet again trying to complete everything before the 18th.

Fortunately work is supportive. Shefa is going to come and see me off. Thankfully my boss is nothing like the Pointy Haired Boss, and has generously sponsored me - thank you Zimmer.

Meanwhile over on the unofficial forum everyone is panicked as their cars keep breaking down/falling apart/blowing up. I am only mildly worried that ours might do the same under the weight of the massive HGV spots Maso has insisted on mounting. After all, Maso's car history is somewhat colourful...

Meeja hoors

Arrived out of this morning's conference research workshop to find Maso splashed all over the Norn Iron media. He's on page 3 of the Irish News, an article which then prompted a call from GMTV to cover us for tomorrow's show (Maso has duly recorded it today). 'Tis all hotting up nicely, really. You can check out our public profile on the Feckin' Irish Rovers web site.

Less than a week

...before I head back to Norn Iron to do all the rally-esque things that might need doing over there, like whoring ourselves to the media over and over again and that final push for sponsorship.

Thanks to the sponsors who have been donating online - Mark d'Inverno, the Pupillis and Mudcat's Ella - we're delighted with your help. (Anyone wanting to join this list of benevolent philanthropists can visit our justgiving pages: http://www.justgiving.com/feckinirishrovers, http://www.justgiving.com/feckinirishrovershopeandhomes, http://www.justgiving.com/feckinirishroversnicfc.)

I haven't packed yet. I haven't had time. I thought work might ease when term ended but it hasn't. However, a few hours spent navigating the autobahns in Germany this week has now prepared me for the first leg of our journey and I'm assured we can get to Prague in 10 hours. Getting through airport security with a laser scanner when the alert level had just been raised (to "orange" or "careful now!" or something) was a much harder task. I thought they might be distracted by the fact that Pikey was carrying a selection of loose human teeth in his pocket, but he breezed through. Perhaps I look like a threat to world peace. I hope not, because I want to get through Russia without being strip searched, for their sake as much as mine.

Hmmm, lunchtime. I should really eat. I keep forgetting to have food, something that never used to happen to me. Unfortunately my clothes are now too big and I have to use belts for all my jeans and I'm pretty sure I'll be eating erractically on the rally, though I intend to take the gourmand approach and trough a load of exotic (and probably mutton-based) foreign dishes into me.


Sometimes you hear, fifth hand,
As epitaph:
He chucked up everything
And just cleared off,
And always the voice will sound
Certain you approve
This audacious purifying,
Elemental move...

Philip Larkin
Poetry Of Departures

17:02hrs

The pigeons are circling.





(That's just me going off topic as I am accused of doing in the forum.)

don't ever want to say goodbye

A lot of farewells coming up in the next few weeks, some of them lifechanging, so I'm indulging in a Malcolm Middleton weepfest. Oh, and cleaning, because that's how I deal with trauma.