Europe trip! Stop 3: Coventry, the transport museum and all that...

Watford was fun, going back to my old school for a tour of the new building was also fun as well. The next part of my journey involved heading up to the midlands to see one of my old friends and his family up there.

I arrived at the train station and couldn’t see anyone there. I waited for 20 minutes and started to get nervous. I had them on facebook but had no internet, and they had my phone number but I didn’t have theirs. I did another lap around the train station and as I walked outside I was greeted by my mate’s little sister.

We stared at each other for a second as we recognized each other but we hadn’t seen each other for so long. We then embraced and went to a local pub to wait for my mate Joe.

Joe rocked up, then we went back to his. When we got back we chatted for an hour before his nephew came around and said he was going boxing that evening, so me and Joe tagged along and watched his nephew beast it in the boxing gym…

The next day we all talked about what we could do while I was there. I mentioned going to Bridgnorth but the timing was bad (If I arrived a week later we all could have taken a day trip there). So we ended up saying we could do three things; go to the 50p fair, go to the transport museum and go to an all you can eat buffet.

On the Wednesday it was very busy in the house. There were kids of various ages doing what kids normally do and because of that there were distractions. Regardless I managed to write 2 blog posts and write an extra 1000 words in my book. Everyone had said they had no work the next day and this was the designated day to have a couple of drinks, so I decided to get McSmashed with cheese for the first time in I can’t even remember how long. Unfortunately for me I was enjoying myself a little too much, and somehow managed to drink a whole 350ml bottle of vodka by myself. I don’t remember much about that evening, and I woke up the next day to find I’d sent a couple of incoherent messages to friends and had a horrible feeling I’d done something terrible, the kind of thing that would make your host want to kick you out of their house! Fortunately for me I didn’t do anything that bad even though I was convinced I had…

Hangover day consisted of me feeling sorry for myself, and in the evening three of us (me, Joe and Joe’s sister) went to the 50p fair, which is exactly what you think it is. It was actually really good! I didn’t go on everything because my stomach was obviously a little bit delicate, but I still went on most of them. The rides had a lot of G-Force on them so you couldn’t walk in a straight line afterwards. (…Nah, that joke’s too easy…) and we stayed until about 10:30. We would have left at 9:30 but Joe’s little sister was getting chatted up by some guy on the waltzers, and because of that she went on the waltzers something crazy like 9 times in a row in a quest to find the father of her future children…

The first F3 car to run on natural ingredients: apparently; I didn't question it...

The hangover disappeared the next day and we all went to the Transport Museum, which was free to get in. I loved it, but the others had been so many times they kind of wandered through half-heartedly. I spent ages looking at all the vehicles, which included a lot of the old bikes from the old Singer factory, and I was impressed as I carried on to see a lot of old and/or rare vehicles that had obviously been donated over time.

The exact car used to break the land speed record

Finally it was the last day, so we all went to Cosmos, which is an all you can eat buffet similar to Global, the one I went to in Watford, only it was a LOT cheaper and had slightly less choice of food, but still had a fair amount. We demolished it and sat back admiring what we had accomplished, only for Joe’s mum to start getting irritated about how many people weren’t talking to each other and instead were on their phones ‘checking in’ and messaging other people, which lead her to shout,

“It’s a shame all these people have their phones ON THEIR FUCKING DICKS!”

I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t see anyone taking dick pics, nor did I see anyone resting their phones on their genitalia, but Joe’s mum must have seen something to upset her. To her credit everyone within earshot put their phones away and started doing what most people do in restaurants. Of course we all laughed and made jokes about people having phones on their dicks for the rest of the time we were there.

And that was it really. We all chilled out for the rest of the day and me and Joe watched Match Of The Day (Something I haven’t done in literally years, because of my job in England and living abroad for so long) in the evening before falling asleep.

The next day I left feeling upset, because not only did it feel like I’d just got there, but these people treated me like family and I can’t honestly say when I’ll see them again. Every one of them was so loving and caring towards me and you can’t put a price on that. I said goodbye to all of them with a warm embrace, all except the little sister, who had work all day and didn’t have time to pop down and say goodbye which was a real shame, but I’m sure she knows I was just as happy to see her as I was the rest of the family.

When I first met Joe I used to come up and see him, now the next time I go back there it will be to see the whole family. Hopefully it won’t be another 9 years before I see you all again though! Thanks for looking after me and showing me around Coventry. Next time I’ll try and time it better so everyone has time off work, and we can go to Bridgnorth together…