August 7

This trip started badly. Just after I picked the car up I drove though, something on the road. It was like a thick mash that I didn’t see. But I heard it as it sprayed up – all though the wheel-arches and the underside of the car.

I pulled up at home and opened the door into a thick cloud of invisible but unspeakable stink. If that dripping rubbish-truck in front of you at the traffic-lights is 6/10, and the worst dog-poo you’ve ever stepped in was 8/10, this was a gagging 10/10 horror. I sloshed several buckets of water over the car to get it off and then packed my things and took my godson to the airport. By time we got to Heathrow the heat of the engine had amplified The Stink to 12/10 and we fell about gagging and laughing in the Heathrow T2 car park. But the joke was on me. It was on the car. It was in the car. And it felt on me and even part of me. It made me sick. By the time I got to Bristol I was desperately and urgently looking for a high-pressure steam-clean truck-wash.

So my first chats were with a rather shocked Egyptian car-wash team all aghast at The Stink that had rolled into their wash-station with my car and me.

We talked about how nice they found living in Bristle. These guys work hard and have a rough but thriving business. While I was grateful for their efforts on the underside of my car, a trace of The Stink was to haunt me for this whole trip.

As I entered Wales and paid my bridge-toll I was struck how instantly foreign everything felt. This was the first UK country that really felt like another country for me, with all the road-signs first in Welsh and then in English. Few if any of the place-names could be read in my head.

This might come as a shock to UK readers – but most people outside the UK don’t realise the UK is a union of 4 countries (or 3 countries and a province). Much to the dismay of the Welsh and Scots, and at best most people in the US or Asia might think of Wales or Scotland as states of England; not separate countries.

Into Wales and down to Newport for lunch. As I enter a new town I’m always looking for what’s unique or different about each place. I mentioned, when I was in Newcastle, the demise of the high-street retailer. But as I walked around the centre of Newport and saw Boots, Top Shop, Debenhams, Muffin Break, Poundland, Costa etc it struck me how the sameness of franchises and chains has really sapped much of the individuality of the high-street experience in all of the UK’s towns.

I wanted to learn about the Welsh. At first it wasn’t as easy as in some of the other places I’ve been. I was later to learn that the Welsh see themselves as more reserved than the English – perhaps even shy – so me bowling up for a chat was for many a bit strange and off-putting. Conversations were short.

Something funny I’ve noticed is that what everywhere in the world is called an ‘English Breakfast’ is an ‘Irish Breakfast’ in Ireland and a ‘Welsh Breakfast’ in Wales. I guess I’ll soon have a ‘Scottish Breakfast’ in Scotland.

As I drove through South Wales I tried to look for what caused New South Wales to be its namesake. The damp green and windswept rolling hills didn’t remind me of New South Wales in the slightest. A quick web search showed that Captain Cook merely sailed down the coast and thought “yeah that looks like South Wales” – and so we were named.