Wonderful West Country

Last week my sister (Megan) and I embarked on the longest road trip either of us had done since passing our driving tests .

We drove from Teddington (south west London) to Plymouth. A journey of about 215 miles on some rather windy, hilly roads. There were also inconsiderate truck drivers, traffic jams and our own attempts to navigate to add into the mix. Luckily we made it there in one piece without any major incidents. Yay!

Here is a picture of the more traffic free part of our journey...

We stayed with our aunt, Glyn, in the Mutley area of Plymouth. Handy for all the student bars and not too far from the centre of Plymouth.

On the saturday, we took the train down to Cornwall to visit Looe. Megan was keen to swim in the sea so as soon as we arrived in Looe, we headed straight to the beach. I don't normally go for trying to get into the sea beyond paddling depth but decided to be brave. Once I overcame the initial chill, it was actually really nice.

In the evening, Glyn hosted a party at her house to celebrate her birthday. It had a hippy theme so everyone dug out their long hair wigs, tie dye, flares and other hippy accessories. Here's a pic of me and Meg in our hippy outfits...

What you can't see in this picture is Megan's awesome hippy trousers, really added to the hippy look. The party itself was really good. Glyn has some very cool and interesting friends who had all put in a lot of effort for their costumes. There was even a hippy themed jamming session featuring a guy singing on guitar with a tambourine and flute to keep him company.

On sunday, we decided to stay in Plymouth. We took a walk down the hill to the city centre and explored the fairly new Drake Circus shopping centre before heading to the harbour area. We decided that the Plymouth Aquarium was an essential place to visit. I love aquariums! I get very transfixed by all the different sea creatures, particularly the jelly fish. They also had some amazing octopi (I think that's the right plural for more than one octopus) and mini sharks.

By monday it was time to go home. Unfortunately, the weather conditions on the way home were not so friendly. We had to contend with pouring rain and fog on the windy, hilly roads that took us back towards London. It was a scary driving experience for us both but we made it. Hopefully, we can do more cool road trips like this and feel much more confident as a result of doing this.

Driving me crazy, 2012

Following my last driving related post back in 2010, I would like to announce that I passed my driving test first time on 8th November 2011. With two minors. Clearly the many driving disasters along the way were worth the trouble.

When I finally did pass my test, my Dad provided me with the following advice: "now you have passed your test, the learning really begins".  At the time, I thought this was all a little patronising and was not really sure I could handle traumatic driving experiences all by myself.

Fortunately, in the nine months since I have passed I have not had any major incidents. I had visions of dramatic crashes, particularly on the first occasion I went on the motorway. Then again, I'm not sure any sane people decide that the M25 is the best motorway to start with.

Embarrassingly, I have had a couple of minor incidents. On one occasion, I was trying to reverse out of a parking space and knocked my wing mirror off by clipping it on a metal post. Stylish. On another occasion, I was trying to manouvre out of a tight space in an underground car park and ended up getting a bit too friendly with a van. Leaving a dent along the side of my car and the van completely unharmed. Luckily, my Dad has helped me fix these problems and make my car look less battered. He has fixed my wing mirror and beaten out the dent I put in the car. Perhaps his original post test comment wasn't quite as patronising as I orginally thought?

I'm planning a road trip down to Plymouth with my sister on Friday. I'm going to add an update on that trip once I get back with a view to using this blog more frequently from now on.




Demonstrating my driving skills by not moving in a car park and letting Colin the Cat take all the credit...