Euros, check. Climbing gear, check. toothbrush, check. Plaid beige slacks with double seamed turn ups, che- oh hello there, *takes off inventory-compiling glasses and adjusts knitted casual sweater* you’ve caught me ticking off a few things for my trip! My jolly good friends Jason and Claire have invited me to spend a few weeks in the splendid but slightly foreign sunshine of Spain to partake in a spot of the old rock climbing, so i’ll be slinging my hobnail boots and a length of washing line into the old jalopy and motoring on down in a couple of days! Riiiight… Back to reality for a moment now, but my 1960’s, nuclear family alter ego did have it mostly right, i’ll soon be throwing anything I can think of that might be vaguely useful into the back of my cavernous new van, and attempting to drive about 1000 miles in 24 hours to get to a place in Northern Spain called Siurana for 3 weeks of sport climbing. I will be leaving the plaid slacks at home. The original plan was to fly out to meet Jason and Claire, but for some reason, the justification of which currently eludes me, I decided that instead of a 2 hour plane trip and 3 weeks in a tent, I should take a 20+ hour, solo roadtrip in a van that I can sleep in. Hmmm. Never one to let a ridiculous idea stand in the way of progress, I immediately sold my beloved but massively unroadtripworthy (it’s a word, ok) sports car, and went out and bought the largest amount of cubic foot space on wheels that I could afford. Enter stage right, my new Nissan Largo, ‘The Funbus’

So big I can’t get it into the camera frame it seems… Me and the funbus almost immediately set the score for our future relationship, he decided he didn’t like his alternator belt, so he spat it out on a bypass and left me with no brakes. A lift home on a bigger van and my wallet £100 lighter seemed to make him happy, me less so. Once the funbus had firmly ensconsed himself at the top of my ‘most unreliable vehicles i’ve ever owned’ list, (a perfect acclaim to be held by the only vehicle I have ever wanted to survive a 2000 mile round-trip) I set about fixing him up and doing a little personalisation.

Nothing like a few hundred stickers to liven up a dashboard I always say. So, alternator belt fixed, gearbox oil changed twice, engine oil changed, cam belt checked, accelerator pedal position sensor changed, engine fault codes checked, this bus is about as ready as it will ever be to embark on a lengthy journey. Ha! You don’t fool me that easily, i’m taking a FULL toolkit, axle stands, fluids, gaffer tape and zip ties just in case. The saving grace of the funbus is it’s awesome interior, which has 2 rows of rear seats which fold down perfectly flat to form a double bed. There is still plenty of storage under the seats when in bed mode so a minimum of re-arranging should be needed come bedtime, a distinct bonus after a few too many pastis I should imagine. A few battery powered lights and some homemade curtains and I have a home from home! I’m 3 days and change away from setting off now, my list of things to do and buy before I go just seems to be getting longer and longer, while the pile of stuff I need to fit into the bus is getting bigger and bigger, it all looks to be forming a huge, metaphorical arrow pointing directly towards doom and disaster, but stay tuned, it could be worth a laugh.