Panama 0 – 2 England

Today, we set off on our longest ride yet, all the way over to Richard in Liverpool, with a little stopover in the little village of Great Budmoth.

Didn’t have anything on this weekend and I’m just desperate to constantly get out on the Vespa. Fortunately, good ol’ Ricardo has offered a night out in Liverpool and a bed to sleep in so jars can be had. Glorious!

First job is get ready. I’ve spent the morning cleaning the bathroom (fucking worst job ever), hoovering, tidying a bit, getting breakfast, taking Steve and Juno for a walk. And now, I am READY!

After painfully pushing the Vespa through my stupid gate, fixing my mirrors, getting all geared up, I’m ready to set off. The sound of the scooter when I turn the ignition genuinely always gives me bloody goosebumps. I really don’t know why. I don’t get the feeling with cars, I don’t get it when I’ve cooked a nice meal, why the hell does this have such an impact on me?

Anyway, enough of that silly bollocks, let’s ride!

Hold up, we gonna need some petrol before we set ourselves off properly. First petrol fill up, can’t be that difficult can it? Petrol station on the top of my road, I know to get the best petrol they have, definitely not diesel. What could go wrong?

Well apart from missing the turning for the petrol station and then having to go round the houses to get back round again, I get to the pump and one question props right at the front of my brain.

“How do I know how much petrol to put in?”. Should I know the capacity of the scooter? Do I… Listen to it? Like, how much is in there? Fuck it, I’ll just Google it.

Wait, don’t they say not to use phones at petrol stations? Do they have WiFi that I could maybe use? Would WiFi even stop the bloody pump from exploding?

Why does it feel like that every time I start to enjoy myself, I’m faced with a scenario where I feel so stupid.

I’m now panicking because I’m spending bloody ages on this pump and there’s a queue behind me.

Fuck it, I’m sure I will be able to work this out. After fiddling with the pump and all that shit, spending quite a while filling up and paying for this bloody petrol, I’m finally on my way! In the words of Ivan Drago from Rocky 4, “If he dies… He dies”.

But she wasn’t dying, she was moving. I’m fucking off!

On my way it was beautiful weather, if a bit windy. I stop off at Great Budmouth on the way. It was a lovely little village with proper CHESHARR house wife vibes. The George and Dragon pub looked bloody lovely. Eilish would love it there. Maybe when we can finally convince her to hop on the back of the Vespa, she can see it; or one of us inevitably learns to drive.

The only reason I’m really not fussed by driving is the bloody cost! Took me long enough to save up for the CBT and a silly little Vespa. Probably a good few years to save up for driving and a car in the economy.

One of the biggest regrets was not learning to drive when I was younger, if to just get it out of the bloody way!

Stopped off at a lovely little cafe serving fresh ice cream and nice coffee. Honestly though I was so thirsty, I ended up just necking a Fanta limon.

Some lovely goats and donkeys here. I watched as some of the kids accidentally fed the goat a whole sheet of A4 paper! I was actually impressed. A whole A4 piece of paper. Goat genuinely looked like he enjoyed it.

I joked “I hope that wasn’t your homework”, before becoming very aware that I was the only adult in close vecinity. As such, I make my swift exit. But, not before taking a picture of the Vespa in it’s full glory!

I really want to get a nice photo of it soon. Think I’m gonna take my proper camera out tomorrow and get some decent photos somewhere. It would look sick in Castlefield Bowl eventually.

Anyways, off we go! To Liverpool!

So funny, how I find myself talking to, myself, a lot on these journeys. More just enjoying myself, singing, talking, and just generally having the time of my life.

Until, I approached Runcorn Bridge.

Now, remember I said it was windy? Well my little Vespa doesn’t do so great in the wind. It’s literally the lightest model they make and I avoided putting on the windshield simply because I couldn’t be assed putting it back on after I shoved the bloody thing through the gate.

Mate, this bridge.

I’ve watched videos of people online experiencing the dreaded “death wobble”. Well, I was almost experiencing the exact same sensation through the bloody wind! I shit myself.

But, we made it over. And once we were over it really wasn’t far to Ricardo’s.

I rocked up honking my rather pathetic horn. We lifted the Vespa into Rich’s garage and then he showed me round he’s lovely new extended home.

We had one pint and hit the town!

I wanted to go on the Merseyside river tours, but unfortunately the boats weren’t on due to a technical fault.

No matter! We went to a rooftop bar for a couple of Aperol Spritzs.

I took a decent photo of the Royal Liver Suite.

Richard assured me that the vast majority of Liverpudlians wouldn’t be watching the football as they don’t support England, just Liverpool. Load of bollocks as there were a ton of people in their England clobber, shouting England chants and just being very English.

I was happy about this, as it assured me that there would be some kind of atmosphere wherever we ended up watching the football.

We visited The Ship & Mitre for a couple of nice pints. They also had a very nice bulldog in there called “Vincent”.

We ended up watching the football in a pub called Thomas Rigby’s. It was a pretty standard procedure, decent atmostphere.

Only slight downside was getting a round of bloody drinks when we scored our first goal. Never mind.