Holidays..

Love those two roses, and the hose was a bargain. You made a good job of the pot too.

enjoy your drive , I do love a road trip!! Agree with cinderella that your hypertufa pot is an excellent success..And love the bargain hose..

i love those roses tooo ................. have iceburge . wots the red one ? love ur planter , have a great trip .........;0)))

Iceberg is beautiful, I hope you don't encounter any real icebergs on your journey.

We shall be looking forward to the photos, I hope you enjoy the surprise holiday!

Thanks everyone..The red rose Cristina is' Loving Memory' both are standard roses, unfortunately i had another Loving Memory rose that has died on me...I hope to get lots of pictures even if its from a moving car lol.. I might even sneak a few cuttings if possible.. That hypertufa pot must have cost around £1. to make and the marigolds were nearly dead from B&Q for only 50p. I does like a bargain..

That tub was very good bill, I must have a try, I need some stepping stones and they are much too expensive! I haven't worked out how to make the mould yet.

Lovely pot there, Bill....have a great holiday. Surprise trips are usually the ones that are the most enjoyable in my experience :) Enjoy!

Waddya mean? A SHORT drive? All that in a fortnight - you must be exhausted! And quite mad, too...... I've seen the photos now, though, so it must have been worth it. Would you do it again? We always found the hardest part of the journey was the bit from the south coast back up the M6 to Stockport when the holiday was over.

I'm from Stockport too Gattina. We left at 4pm and I don't know quite how we did it but didn't hit any traffic at all. We drove all night and the next day till 2am till we hit Switzerland without using the toll roads threw France. We are trying to go somewhere in January maybe just Scotland in the snow this time though.

Hey, which bit of Stockport? We lived in Cheadle for a bit, before moving on to Altrincham.
I think wanting to drive through Scotland in January proves beyond a doubt quite how mad you are! Have you got 4 wheel drive or snowchains? And a shovel? And emergency rations? Up here in the Appennines we stock up the cellar and the logpile and the freezers, shut the doors and don't emerge if we don't have to much before April!
We tried using the toll roads through France just once - it was eye-wateringly expensive and with what we paid in tolls, we could have had 2 nights in a decent hotel, but the roads were empty. Not really surprising! After that we used to do Folkestone-Ostend-Bruges-Aachen- Cologne-Frankfurt-Nurnburg, then south past Munich to the Austrian border at Fussen, through Austria via Innsbruck, then up over the Brenner Pass and down past the Italian Lakes towards Bologna or Venice. Not a toll in sight, and some gorgeous, spectacular countryside, too, especially down near the Germany/Austrian border in the Tyrol, where we found the loveliest little hotel which we returned to year after year. There's no way we could drive such long stretches in one go like you. I think you must be a lot younger than us!

I live in Heald Green Gattina, it's such a small world that you lived in Cheadle and now live where i went on holiday.
Nope we don't have 4 wheel drive or chains just stupidity and a few tins of spam.
I've been to Austria both in the summer and winter many years ago and would love to go again. i shall have to copy your route for future use.
In the end we must have spent between 2 to 3 hundred pound on the toll roads especially on the route from Italy to Spain and then back to the UK.
Unfortunately i couldn't do any driving as I've still not got my paper license back since my mini strokes last year, although i can drive in the UK i think it would have been illegal abroad.

Heald Green? Seriously? When I said Cheadle, more specifically Gatley - HG is just down the road. As you say, small world! Glad to hear about the spam.
I think you're right about its being illegal to drive on the continent without your paper licence, but no-one here has ever asked to check that bit of ours and probably don't even know about it's existence: just the plastic bit with the ring of stars and the photo. Still, better safe than sorry, and you're better not to.
If you are interested, we can possibly map out some useful routes for you - the last one we did was Calais-Bruges-Brussels, then south through Belgium-Luxembourg-Metz-Strasbourg-Mulhouse-Basel-Zurich-St Gotthard Tunnel-Como-Milan, and on down through Italy. Much quicker than the other route, but not nearly so interesting or beautiful, except for the bit south of Strasbourg through Alsace Lorraine, with all it's wine producing villages.
Happy planning and travelling!