A potted history

Italian Road Trip 

A potted history up to this point:

Mrs Quikcurl (aka Na – pronounced Nay, and short for Nano (Nayno) – Nobody knows why this is her nickname, or why it has dodgy spelling!) had always planned to travel after Uni, and instead married me. 

We thought ‘work for a few years, save up, then go travelling’. Easy.

Well, of course, that didn’t happen. Na started a PGCE the year we married, then quit it when she decided teaching (in the UK at least) is not for her. 

I struggled to find a job out of Uni (thanks, global financial crisis!) and we found ourselves a couple of years down the line before I found a decent job. 

I worked as a Software Developer for a couple of years, but gradually got bored and wanted a change. Around the same time, Na’s Mum wanted to retire, and wondered what to do with her Chiropody business. Aha! This could be an option! The catch? We were in Norfolk; the business was in South Wales!

After much deliberation, Nano spent a year training as a Chiropodist, and soon after finishing, we made the move to Wales, and she started working alongside her mum. I found a job in a Civil Engineering field, with more time out of the office (and a much nicer office in the Welsh Countryside to boot!).

Fast forward to now, and because of the business, not a lot of holiday has been taken since moving. Around 9 months ago, the OH and I were discussing putting this right, and what we could do for a holiday. We both turned 30 this year, and haven’t had a ‘proper’ holiday since our honeymoon back in 2009.

At the time, New Top Gear, and The Grand Tour was on telly, and we’d often talked about emulating a daft challenge. Of course, this meant a road trip, but where to? Idly looking at a map, we decided it should be far enough away to be a decent adventure. Also, it should be somewhere neither of us had been.

Deciding where to go wasn’t too difficult, the last holiday (3 days) had been to Poland, in February, so we were due a holiday in the sun. The Med is nice, and not too far away…

We settled on Italy.

Now, like all software developers (even ex-ones) this is where the feature creep started.

‘If we’re going to Italy, why not go for the F1?’

‘If we’re going that far we need a decent amount of time, can you get three weeks off work?’

‘Which car will we take? The Mx5 is too small, the Land Rover too slow, the Lexus too thirsty, the Cactus has a 10,000 mile/yr limit, and the BMW is too unreliable! Maybe we should buy something?’

…and so, a simple holiday turned into a rather large undertaking!