On Tour: Great British Road Trip with the parents!

Road trips are a lot of fun, or well I prefer the idea of them to the reality of them. With road trips, getting to your destination is half the fun, as Clark Griswold said in National Lampoon’s Vacation, but it’s definitely not fun if you’re the driver. Thankfully it wasn’t me because I still don’t have a driving licence, I know, embarrassing, but hey John Entwistle never had a driving licence so it’s okay for me to not have one. When I told British friends that my family were going on a road trip from Birmingham to Edinburgh, people thought we were crazy, but you have to keep in mind that British people and Americans have wildly different ideas of what long distances are. For Americans, a British road trip is easy… well the distances are. There are many other traps you have to watch out for when you’re driving. Let’s just say this, there’s a reason George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four. Is a road trip fun? Yeah! But there are pros and cons. Still, we had a great time driving across the UK and seeing so many different cities and hearing a bunch of different accents.

My parents are obsessed with cruises and during this road trip I could see exactly why they’re sold on the cruise ship lifestyle. Driving sucks up a lot of energy and my dad was constantly tired because even with these not so long by American standards distances, it was still tiring to drive for that long, especially with him dealing with jet lag. I didn’t have to deal with jet lag as I’m only coming in from Ireland. On top of that, before their road trip, they decided to save money and take a National Express bus trip from Heathrow to the West Midlands. At the end of the trip, my dad said if he’s coming back to the UK, he’s spending the extra cash to take the train even if it costs more. I couldn’t agree more. Buses are the least pleasant mode of transport. Trains are much faster, you know where it’s going, and it takes you to the city centre. Flying is even faster, but sometimes airports are so far away from your destination, especially if you’re flying with Ryanair. What my dad hated the most about driving in the UK and this is something British friends warned me about, speed cameras and other enforcement cameras in the city. That’s what makes me anxious about driving. The UK has so many cameras, and it’s not just in London. On the motorways and in the cities they have speed cameras. There’s also cameras checking to make sure cars don’t go into the bus lane and if you’re caught by one of those cameras, you get fined – yes even if it’s an accident. They’re ruthless. Also, there are clean air zones in some cities and you will be charged daily for driving within them and they do nab you with the cameras, so don’t think you can just skip paying the clean air charge (however there are some exemptions, but it’s really confusing, even for British people). Now you know why I was talking about Nineteen Eighty-Four in the previous paragraph. That said, I felt that the roads were pretty safe and people weren’t as crazy drivers as in America. The other con of road trips is finding parking in cities and parking costing an arm and a leg. See, when you’re on a cruise, you don’t have to pack, unpack, and repack and you don’t have to drive or find parking or pay for it because all your activities are on the ship. Over time I’ve become cruise ship-pilled and I blame my parents. I think from now on I’m either going to one place, staying there, and seeing it in depth, or if I want to see multiple places I’m either going on a cruise or a land based tour with a tour group. Much less stress. Last thing I want on holiday is stress. I want to enjoy myself.

My dad has travelled to the UK before a few times, but only ever saw London. My mum has been to Liverpool with me a decade ago on a day trip from London, so this was a whole new trip for them, seeing all sorts of places. My advice to anyone who wants to visit the UK is if you really want to see the UK, don’t just see London. I love London, don’t get me wrong. I keep coming back there because there’s so much to do there and it’s a really cool city, but it’s expensive and there’s so much more to the UK than London. By just staying in London you’re missing out on a lot! So consider at least taking a day trip somewhere if you’re going to London, but I’d say if you like doing something a bit different, see parts of the UK that aren’t London. That’s what my cousin did! She went to Wales, the north of England, and Scotland. She didn’t go to London at all. Her favourite parts of the UK were the more countryside places she visited in Wales and Scotland. But my advise is think about what you really want to see. Oh and don’t forget, the weather is very fickle in the UK, so bring an umbrella and plenty of layers, clothes for all sorts of temperatures. Be prepared! As the saying goes, no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes.

Birmingham: Museums and Touristy Stuff

Birmingham gets made fun of a lot in the UK from my understanding. People tend not to like the Brummie accent and they’ll say that Birmingham isn’t the nicest city. But really, there are nice parts of the city and there are things to do and plenty of history, you just have to look for it. Birmingham is only the second largest city in the UK so there’s bound to be some things to do, so don’t sleep on Birmingham! We went to some great restaurants and some great museums and my husband and I went to a gig at one of the clubs in Digbeth, which I’ll talk about later in the blog post.

When doing research on things to do in the Birmingham area, I remembered coming across The Black Country Living Museum on Tiktok and I was fascinated when I saw it. Eons ago, when I was a teenager, I went to Colonial Williamsburg with my family and that was such a unique experience. A must-do for history buffs. There’s really nothing like a living history museum. What makes these types of museums special is that they recreate life during various historical time periods and not just with the buildings, they also have historical interpreters in costume, playing different roles: school teacher, shop assistant, blacksmith, bus driver, bartender, etc, making for an immersive experience. They’re in character just like the Princesses at Disneyland. Living history museums are basically Disney for history buffs. If you want an even more immersive experience, living history museums are great places to take photos so dress up in your best historical (looking) clothing and do a little historybounding. Best part with historybounding is you don’t have to stress out about accuracy, just have fun with it! Doesn’t matter if the pieces are vintage, reproduction, thrifted, or even just stuff that you bought at the mall – what matters is the look and the styling.

The Black Country Living Museum is located just outside of Birmingham in a town called Dudley. You can access it by train, but we went there by car. The museum has been open for 45 years now and what makes it really special is that most of the buildings were relocated and brought over brick by brick and reconstructed. Since it opened to the public in the late 70s, it’s grown to over 60 buildings and there are plans to have a mid-20th century, post WWII section that focuses on the 40s, 50s, and 60s. This section is under construction at the moment. The BBC show Peaky Blinders was filmed at the BCLM and the museum will host special Peaky Blinders nights where they encourage visitors to dress 1920s style!

In the museum you have various exhibits including a garage dedicated to cars and buses where you’ll see some historic cars being restored, a coal mine that you can go inside and listen to stories about the life of a coal miner, a 1930s street with shops and restaurants, a late 19th century-early 20th century street with shops, a 1910s schoolhouse, a 1920s silent film cinema, a 1930s pub, 1930s workers institute with a cafeteria style restaurant in it, a blacksmith shop where people make nails and chains, houses from various time periods, and a canal with houseboats. So if you’re into those time periods in history, this will be the perfect living history museum for you!

After we went to the museum, we went back to Birmingham and got some lunch at The Vegan Kitchen. The restaurant is a sit down restaurant inside the Great Western Arcade, a Grade II listed Victorian shopping arcade built in 1875-6 – good place to take photos. The menu at The Vegan Kitchen is focused on vegan comfort food. So if you like vegan burgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, mac & cheese, and chips, this is the place for you! As the restaurant’s name says, all items here are vegan, so no worries for the vegans, vegetarians, and the lactose intolerant. I ordered a vegan chicken burger and chips and mac and cheese. Yup, couldn’t decide on one! Portions are good and I ended up taking some of the mac and cheese with me so I could eat it later at the hotel, still tasted great even though I didn’t reheat it (the hotel did not have a microwave). My omni parents liked the food too. It reminds me a bit of the now shut down V-Rev in Manchester (I miss it so much!) and the Chicago Diner. It’s indulgent and a nice treat.

Day 2: Chocolate factory (well, not really), a bit of Wales, and the drive up to North West England

Another popular thing to do in Birmingham is Cadbury World, which if I’m being honest, I think you can skip this one unless you have kids. My parents love factory tours. We’ve gone on the Miller brewery tour in Milwaukee, the Kellogg’s Cereal City USA tour in Battle Creek, Michigan (sadly closed in 2007), and when we went to Vermont, we did both the Ben & Jerry’s and Vermont Teddy Bear tours, I especially loved these tours. What’s different though is that Cadbury World isn’t a factory tour – so don’t expect to see the factory floor and people making chocolate, it’s more of a museum/pseudo theme park of sorts dedicated to Cadbury chocolate. As you can expect, this one’s more suited for families with kids. I know I would have loved this when I was 8-12, but I’m pushing 30 and I thought it was alright. Like Disney, it’s a lot of queueing and constantly being sold to – they gotta get money out of you somehow. Cadbury World is located in a really nice area of Birmingham called Bournville. It’s quaint and picturesque and not some ugly industrial area at all. Americans would think it looks like an idyllic fairytale.

When you get to Cadbury World, you queue to get in and as soon as you get to the front of the queue they give you three chocolate bars and they sell you tote bags: either a branded purple one or a canvas one with Cadbury World written on it – they’re not ridiculously priced but the sales pitch is just getting started. Makes me think of the SpongeBob episode where SpongeBob and Patrick decide to become door to door chocolate salesmen and sell chocolate bars, carrying bags, and carrying bags for your chocolate bar carrying bags. There’s an Xzibit joke in here somewhere: “Yo dawg, I heard you like bags, so we got you a chocolate bar bag carrying bag for your chocolate bar bag”. If you don’t want to purchase a tote bag, just bring your own. The bummer here with the chocolate bars they give you is there are no vegan options. Just Wispas and Dairy Milk that you can easily find at Tesco. It’s a shame because Cadbury have a line of vegan chocolate bars and it would be nice to offer something for vegans and the lactose intolerant. Towards the end, there is a place where you get a sample of some melted chocolate with a topping of your choice in a cup, but once again, no vegan options. Disappointing in this day and age. I know that there might be fears of cross-contamination but there are steps that they could take to avoid that, and even easier, offer a vegan bar at the beginning! Anyway, I took the samples of chocolate I was given and gave them to my dad and my husband. I’m sure they appreciated the extra chocolate!

Inside the museum/visitors centre, there’s a walk through section geared towards children where they talk about the history of chocolate itself and Cadbury before you go inside this theatre and watch a couple films about Cadbury and how chocolate is made (personally, this isn’t anything more informative than watching an episode of How It’s Made). After that, you’re queueing and walking through the different areas of the visitors centre like an assembly line. You get to write your name (or whatever you want) in chocolate, you go on this ride that’s a chocolate themed fever dream version of Disneyland’s It’s a Small World, and you look at some signs and stuff with history of Cadbury and some chocolate sculptures before you get to the sampling and demonstration room. There is another sales pitch where they have you pose in front of a greenscreen and do some cheesy poses and sell you those photos like Six Flags or Disneyland do when you get off one of the rollercoasters. And then at the end you walk into this big ass gift shop full of souvenirs, unique handmade chocolate treats, and wholesale priced chocolate where the signs boast about the prices being lower than the shops. Good news for bargain hunters who love their chocolate is you don’t need a ticket to Cadbury World to buy something from the gift shop. So if you find yourself in Bournville and you’re thinking “Man, I need some cheap chocolate!”, you can stop at the gift shop. To be fair to Cadbury, the souvenir prices aren’t ridiculous like Six Flags or Disney. I didn’t get anything though. Cafe prices were a bit expensive. My parents wanted sausage rolls, but I told them they can get a few sausage rolls at Greggs for the cost of one at Cadbury World. Well, I can say this, my parents went to Greggs multiple times on this trip and loved it! For the Americans reading this, Greggs is kinda like Dunkin Donuts, except better. The vegan sausage rolls and bakes are cheap and good. Good cheap convenient food that keeps you going, simple as. The UK is expensive, so find ways to save money where you can.

After Cadbury World, we made our way up north. When looking up the route on Google Maps, I told my dad there’s a way we can drive through Wales so we can say we’ve been to Wales because my parents are suckers for taking pictures next to welcome signs, and so am I, and then we can go to Chester before going to our hotel, and it wouldn’t really be out of the way at all. Sounds like a plan! On the way there, we were hungry and wanted to get some lunch so we decided to stop for lunch in Wrexham, which is the fourth largest city in Wales after Cardiff, Newport, and Swansea – which are all in the south. Now you might be familiar with the name Wrexham and think where do I know that place from? Well, you might have heard of Wrexham AFC, who are owned by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. There’s a show on Disney+ called Welcome to Wrexham and certainly that boosted the city’s profile on an international level. The two actors made an effort to get into Welsh language and culture, being ambassadors for it, and worked with a Welsh translator to announce their takeover of the team.

Anyway, I was hungry and I looked up some vegan friendly places to eat in Wrexham and while there was a vegetarian place, it was only open for dinner and on the outskirts, so we kept searching. I came across a Thai restaurant called Divine Thai with plenty of vegan options and it serves bubble tea too, and I am obsessed with bubble tea (I really hope my bank doesn’t do a Spotify wrapped type thing because I don’t want to think about how much I spend on boba)! It has great reviews, so we go there. We walk in and we stand out like sore thumbs because we all have very foreign accents and Wrexham isn’t the most touristy place. Me with some weird blend of an American/Canadian/Irish accent, my dad the Midwesterner, and my mum from Venezuela. I order a vegan curry and my parents order fried rice. A young girl in the restaurant enjoying a bubble tea starts a conversation with us and asks us all about America. People are really friendly. My parents talk to the owner and he’s from China and his wife is Thai and they met while he was on holiday in Thailand – travel really does bring people together, right? I order a matcha bubble tea that is dairy free. I appreciate that the owner of the restaurant double checked all the bubble tea to make sure that there is one I can have. I can tell it’s a pretty good place because they have quite a few regulars.

After that, we walked around the town for a bit before returning to the car. There was a festival on called Focus Wales and we walked to this beautiful church called St Giles’ Church, one of the Seven Wonders of Wales. I also went to a charity shop and bought this beautiful purple velvet scarf with fringe, which you can see me wearing in a photo below.

From there, it wasn’t far until we get to Chester. If you’ve read my other travel blog posts, you might remember I was there a few years ago back in 2019. I absolutely loved it and like I said then, it’s worth visiting as a day trip from Manchester or Liverpool. I love how beautiful and medieval the city looks. Very quaint, fairytale like, and picturesque. Definitely a unique experience for Americans. It will make you say “we need to build cities like this again”. When I mentioned Chester to my parents, they were definitely interested and so we went there. They said it was easily one of their favourite places they visited in the UK. This time I got to see the last of the cherry blossoms, beautiful!

For dinner, we went to a vegan restaurant called Pink Lettuce. It’s a bit pricey and we weren’t too hungry so we ordered a few appetisers and some drinks between us. We had some gyozas and sticky tofu bites and we thought they were really good. I had a latte and my dad ordered a hot chocolate. I’d be interested coming back and try one of the entrees next time.

Day 3: Liverpool

I’ve been to Liverpool twice before in 2013 and 2019 and I loved it both times and I’m always down to visit again. Liverpool is really a cool city and it’s more than just Beatles stuff, even though the Beatles stuff is my favourite thing about the city. If I could live there, I would! The first time I went, I would say a day trip is enough for Liverpool, but honestly I think it’s a great place to spend a weekend or long weekend – easily. So many museums, shops, and things to do. What made this visit to Liverpool special is we visited when the Eurovision festivities were going on. When a city hosts Eurovision, it’s not just about the finals, there’s a whole festival that goes on in the cities and all sorts of activities around that. There was also one thing I really wanted to do in Liverpool but I never had the opportunity to do and that is the Beatles Childhood Homes Tour. This is one you must do if you’re a big Beatles fan, but make sure to book in advance because there are limited spaces. The National Trust purchased the childhood homes of John Lennon – Mendips and Paul McCartney – 20 Forthlin Road a couple decades ago and so you can only tour them through the National Trust. The price for the tour is a reasonable £11 and you meet at Speke Hall, which is pretty close to Liverpool John Lennon Airport, to take a shuttle to the two houses, where you’ll meet a knowledgable guide who will tell you stories about the two houses and how their early songs were born there. Here are just a couple interesting tidbits: While John and Paul grew up quite differently socioeconomically with John Lennon living in a middle class house with a name and Paul living in a mid-terrace council house that his family never owned (they rented it from the government), the two had a lot of similarities. Both lost their mothers when they were teenagers, had similar interests, and their first compositions had similar titles John’s was “Hello Little Girl” and Paul’s was “I Lost My Little Girl”. As you know, the two met at the St Peter’s Church fête and they hit it off. While Mendips was the nicer house, the two would more often skip school and practice at Paul’s house because the house was empty and there was more space. It’s such a great experience standing where rock and roll history happened and you can easily picture John and Paul hanging out and playing music. One thing to keep in mind is that you cannot take pictures inside the house for copyright reasons (although it’s quite easy to get away with it upstairs when the guide isn’t looking – don’t worry I was a good girl and obeyed the rules). You can take photos outside though, no problems there and the guides are friendly and will take group photos or a photo of you if you’re travelling solo.

I’m not sure if this is official policy but in our case, we got into Speke Hall for free, so two National Trust sites for the price of one! A lot of people just think of Liverpool as just The Beatles, but really there’s a lot more history because it’s a major port city and at Speke Hall, you see this beautiful Tudor timber framed manor house with a Victorian/Arts and Crafts style interior. You can read more about the history here. The good news with this one is you can indeed take pictures inside, so you can see some pictures I took below:

After that, we went to Strawberry Field, which inspired the famous song “Strawberry Fields Forever”. Last time I was in Liverpool, I don’t think there was a visitors centre, there, but now there is so we took photos there in the garden.

Finally, we got to the city centre and had some lunch and walked around. I got some falafel at a chain restaurant called Go Falafel, which is all vegan and very reasonably priced, and even gave us some samples while my order was being made. After that, we saw some Beatles related statues and walked down Mathew Street. Because of Eurovision and tourist season, Liverpool was packed. I wanted to go inside the Cavern Club like I did the other times, but I think things have changed and they no longer have free entry at non-peak hours and now they always charge admission, what a shame (cost of living crisis strikes again!). My mum’s a cheapskate and we did not go inside. However, the Cavern Pub does have free entry and live music. Instead, we went to the Eurovision village at the dock and enjoyed some live music there.

For dinner, we had Indian food at this food market called the GPO. Service was a bit slower than expected, but the food was good. I got chana masala, a classic. Can’t go wrong with that!

Day 4: Rainy day at the Lake District

We could have done another day in Liverpool or gone to Manchester, but I suggested instead of backtracking (we were staying in Preston since my dad got a free hotel night with points), we drive north and get to Scotland sooner. Well, as you know, British weather is fickle and if you’re staying any length of time there, you’re bound to deal with a rainy day or a few! Oftentimes, it isn’t rainy all day, but in this case it was rainy all day long. Still, we’re going to go sightseeing anyway, or at least attempt to. We’re passing by the Lake District, so might as well stop by one of the towns and one of the ones that wasn’t so out of the way was Windermere, a town that’s quite popular to visit if you’re going to the Lake District. We walked around for a couple of hours but it was pouring with no breaks and it was cloudy so you couldn’t see anything. We walked around the town and ended up in this antique shop where I ended up getting a Rossetti poetry book for £4

We stopped in Carlisle to get lunch at Greggs and at this point here, we were not far from the Scottish border and here’s the obligatory photo with the welcome sign and a photo of Carlisle Castle.

We were tired from all the driving and decided to take it easy and go to a restaurant within walking distance from our hotel in Glasgow and so we went to Nando’s, a safe, reliable option, and brought the food back to the hotel room because it was packed in the restaurant. I tried the vegan Great Imitator Wrap for the first time. I liked it better than the other veggie options I’ve tried in the past. While I prefer to go to small and independent businesses for food, this was pretty good and reliable.

Day 5: Loch Lomond

Scotland was the real highlight and it’s not a trip to Scotland without going to see one of the beautiful lochs and get a taste of the highlands. The easiest one to get to from Glasgow is Loch Lomond, less than an hour away. I’d been there before back in 2015 on a day trip from Edinburgh, but unfortunately it was raining a lot when I went because I went in the spring. It’s beautiful rain or shine! I live in Killarney and the two places look so similar so I joked about how I flew to a different country to go on a road trip to see a place that looks like where I live.

The day started out rainy and cloudy, but we got lucky and it cleared up, after our boat cruise, but that doesn’t mean we can’t explore and drive around. Even though it was rainy, the boat cruise offered stunning views of Loch Lomond. So I got lucky with the weather this time compared to last time. We went to Balloch Castle and Cameron House to take photos before driving to Firkin Point to take pictures. On the way there, we stopped in a village called Luss and I kid you not, when my dad parked the car and I looked to the right I saw a sign for a village green! As a huge Kinks fan, I was over the moon!

When we came back to Glasgow, we decided to get Indian food at this highly rated, award-winning restaurant called Madras Cafe. I’d been told before that you can find the best Indian food outside of India in Glasgow and let me tell you, the meal was phenomenal. Easily the best meal I had during this trip. They have something for everyone whether you’re an omnivore or vegan – plenty of vegetarian and vegan options as you can expect. Restaurant was super busy, but the service was quick and efficient. My parents were very impressed too. I ordered a vegan dosa and it was incredible. Easily a highlight of our trip.

Day 6: Glasgow

While I think Edinburgh is the prettier, more tourist friendly city, Glasgow has a lot to offer and you gotta check out Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum – for its beautiful paintings, the Necropolis – a really big graveyard with great views of the city, and The People’s Palace – a museum about the history of the people of Glasgow with emphasis on working class life. You will notice that there’s a glasshouse in the back of the People’s Palace and that’s where the Winter Gardens were. Unfortunately they have not reopened and there’s no definite timeline on when they’ll reopen. If you’re a cat person, here’s an interesting tidbit, a cat called Smudge became a local celebrity for catching rats at the People’s Palace. She became a full blue collar member of Branch 29 of the GMB Union – the only cat ever to do that. She died in 2000 at the estimated age of 28-30. Now that’s what I call a phenomenal cat! If you’re only gonna do one museum though, it has to be Kelvingrove. It’s a beautiful museum with exhibits on art, fashion, history, and animals.

After that, we went to a vegan restaurant with a cool name, The Glasvegan. I saw good reviews of it and I decided to give it a try and I like to make it a point to go to vegan restaurants. The food is mostly fast food type stuff, but all vegan. I ordered a vegan kebab and a peanut butter cup milkshake. Vegan milkshake was good and I liked the kebab, but I wish instead of tortilla chips it came with chips. Prices were good though.

From there, we drove to the hotel, which was further from Edinburgh than we thought, but it was a beautiful drive. We’ll talk about the hotel in the next two sections.

Day 7: Edinburgh and partying at a castle

We had to get up bright and early for the drive to Edinburgh. We originally planned to go on one of those free walking tours, but we underestimated how long the drive was and how long it would take to find parking so we decided to walk around the city on our own and check out the beautiful architecture around the Royal Mile. My mum wanted to get a nice scarf for my brother as a souvenir because he wanted one of those wool scarves that Scotland is known for. In the gift shops there is a wide variety of scarves at all price points and at varying quality. Mind you, not all of it will be made in Scotland. In fact, much of it isn’t, however the country of manufacture is obscured (probably China though). Just something to be aware of if it matters to you. After a lot of searching, we got a good deal on a made in Scotland tartan scarf for my brother – on sale and looks very similar to a Burberry scarf. I wanted one of those nice Harris Tweed jackets, but it’s not in my budget. One day though!

I had lunch at a poké restaurant called Bowls. I ordered the vegan Korean poké bowl and I liked it a lot. We were exhausted and we had a party to go to at the hotel we were staying at. But this wasn’t just any ordinary hotel. This is a castle that has been turned into a hotel, the Schloss Roxburghe, in the Scottish Borders near a town called Kelso (as a That 70s Show fan I chuckled at the name). It was formerly owned by the Duke of Roxburghe, but was later sold and became a hotel. Most of the rooms are in this extension and the rooms are classic and luxurious. Throughout the hotel there’s this beautiful green/blue colour scheme that reminds me of aestheticism. This is easily one of the most fancy places I’ve stayed, so it was a great way to end the road trip. To celebrate the hotel’s opening, there was a party and a bunch of posh people were there. There was food, champagne and posh things like falconry. Of course, I dressed up like a dandy to go to this party because why wouldn’t I? The food was excellent and I especially loved the chickpea curry.

Day 8: Scottish Borders and driving back to Brum

Since we didn’t spend much time at the hotel the previous day, we decided to enjoy it since we had a late checkout. I decided to take photos of myself in my new stretch velvet green dress, perfect for a fairy tale looking castle. Just stunning. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

Afterwards, we drove back and we decided to stop for dinner at Purezza in Manchester. Purezza is a favourite of mine and I’ve been to their other locations in London and Brighton. It’s a fully vegan pizza restaurant. The menu is slightly different at each location, but I didn’t mind. What made this Manchester location special is the day we there there they had a weekly DJ session and the DJ was playing old 70s disco, soul, and R&B music, which my dad loves. Great music, great pizza. A win all around. Of course, I had to get some vegan mac and cheese and my parents and I wanted to try a dessert, a brownie with chocolate ice cream. My pizza was a vegan pepperoni pizza with agave syrup. When my family were in Italy my brother was raving about honey on pizza and I didn’t get to try it because I’m a vegan, but now I understand the hype!

Sadly by this point in the trip I was feeling a bit under the weather, but thankfully I’m a lot better now.

Bonus: Live Music in London and Birmingham

During the road trip, I got a bunch of good news and one of them is that I won tickets to go to The Hippie Shake’s launch party for their Across The Universe collection. I’m always down for some live music and cool looking clothes so my husband and I went to London and attended the party. There, they had a popup display of the clothes from the collection to try on. I never saw so many people dressed in 60s/70s fashion in my life, also so many people that were vintage community famous.

Of course, I had to dress in an outlandish looking outfit and I didn’t want to look like everyone else at the party so I wore my purple velvet bell sleeve dress with my custom ribbon corset on top to make the look more interesting. Not at all true to the theme, more vampire/gothic looking, but I like it! Not sure if I’m entering a new era, but hey, life is too short to conform and not be adventurous. Heck, even got a couple compliments on the outfit with a bunch of people going “how did you get your waist so small?” A lot of patience, dedication, and having chronic pain!

At the party, there were two bands playing lives sets: Holiday Ghosts and Mandrake Handshake. The former are an indie rock band from Falmouth, in Cornwall. The latter are a psychedelic rock band from Oxford who describe their music as “flowerkraut”. Both sets were great and very energetic. My favourite song of all was “Monolith” by Mandrake Handshake, very Pink Floyd “Breathe” inspired.

My husband and I decided to stay the night in Hackney and we went to our favourite restaurant in London, Temple of Seitan – always hits the spot! We also checked some charity shops and vintage shops and I bought a Laura Ashley blouse from the 1980s. One day I’ll show it off on my Instagram. The following morning we went to We Are Vegan Everything, a vegan cafe. Because it was so early when we went, we just had pastries and coffee. I had a vegan almond croissant. Haven’t had croissants in ages so it was nice to have one again!

When I was at the party, I ran into Alex and Caitlin from The Crystal Teardrop and a couple days later I went to their show at The Night Owl in Birmingham and it was incredible! The Night Owl is a club that plays a lot of psychedelic rock and 60s R&B and they have DJ sets and live music. I usually am not one to go to night clubs because I don’t dance, but I love live music so I decided to go and wow! The Crystal Teardrop were amazing. Definitely want to see them live again. The highlights for me are “Nine Times Nine”, their cover of “You Just Gotta Know My Mind” – written by Donovan and made famous by Dana Gillespie, and this instrumental jam (no idea what the title is but I hope they release it on an album).

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