Manchester to Bristol
Day
9
 We
had a lazy start and didn’t get going till 12.30pm. We got on
the A34 after some compass navigation and a cheeky bit of
motorway, and headed South for Birmingham. I have nothing
special to report about the places we went through other than
that Stafford was an almighty hole. Not that we regret going
there, we just enjoy telling everyone how rubbish it was. We got
to Birmingham and we were staying with a friend who lived on the
Bristol Road, or A38, at Selly Oak, near the university.
Luckily, we found ourselves on the A38 as the light was fading,
and the motorway had been closed. We paid little heed to this as
we lacked any kind of number plates to identify us and felt that
we would do little harm if we just carried on along it, and
eventually and very easily found our way to our friends in Selly
Oak.
After a few drinks at the Gun Barrels, Charlie went back to the
house for a good sleep and I, maybe foolishly, convinced myself
I was still a student and went with my hostess and her friends
to a grotty indie night called Snobs, drank far too much and
stumbled home to be woken by Charlie a couple of hours later.
Day 10
I had promised him that regardless of my excesses the night
before I would happily leave early in
the morning. I regretted this for the first few hours during
which I absent mindedly pulled out in front of a few large
vehicles, but by the time we’d got to Tewkesbury (gorgeous
little town) I had really cheered up and so had the scenery we
were going through. It also rained a lot that day, a hell of a
lot and we were pretty much soaked all the time, never getting
time off to dry. Going through Worcester, it hailed so hard I
had to stop under a tree to avoid damaging myself. We had lunch
in a very nice little 15th century tea room in Tewkesbury, very
quiet and polite.
 More
nice ride to Bristol, the weather cleared up and there were some
amazing cloud formations. When we arrived in Bristol we had a
few hills but it’s a great city and we didn’t mind. We found our
way to Redland, the student district, to stay with a friend: the
whole house were in the midst of final exams but were happy to
have us and we just sat around, ate pizza, watched TV and dried
out. They even gave up their beds for us.
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