This section covers all the Ws: who, where, why, what, when, and, erm, how. 
A daily record of the plans made and the decisions taken. 
Click on the articles below for the latest news.

Dear Diary, The second day of the rally started by forking out €60 for the daily tankful of fuel. There are things I’ll miss about the trip, but making a sheikh richer each day isn’t one of them. We met the whole motley crew at Das McDonald's; the face on the woman serving was a picture as a tribe of hungover, toga-wearing Englishmen (it was the fancy-dress theme of the day) ordered McWrap Rührei Bacon and “der coffee”. After pictures and collecting our challenge sheet, Lisa

Dear Diary, Today was the big day, the start of the rally, which meant putting all the graphics onto the car…a task made more difficult by the incessant drizzle which soaked us and left a slippery film all over the car. Eventually we got the job done, and the car looked boss. I’d arranged for a photographer to meet us and take some glamour shots. The rest of the team were gobsmacked that I’d done such a thoughtful thing for us all. Lisa was even more gobsmacked when the ph

Dear Diary, On day two, we decided to walk into town, which was only a mile or so away. What we couldn’t see from the map was that it was also a mile or so down in altitude - our hotel was at the top of a massive rocky spur that dominates the city. We made it down the trail, passing people coming the other way in full hiking gear, but ended up on the wrong side of the river, which gave us a chance to explore the city before heading back to the right side for a delicious, coo

Dear Diary, We have arrived in Namur, although it was far from straightforward. Carl got a puncture as we were about to leave our street. Do you know how hard it is to get a tyre fixed at 7 AM on a Wednesday in Liverpool? Thankfully, he managed it. The M6 was rammed at the Winwick Interchange, and by the time we joined the M25, the weather was biblical. Horizontal rain, coming down in sheets as thick as lead, accompanied by thunder and lightning. Probably not what Rache

We're running out of ways to thank all the lovely people for their donations. We know times are tough at the moment, so to see so many people contribute so much is truly heartwarming. Our original target was £1,000, and, to be honest, we felt nervous asking for that. So when we cruised past that total, we were blown away. Over the last couple of days, people have kept giving, so we have decided to take a big leap and up our target. We are covering 2,200 miles, so it felt

In an effort to keep the cash rolling in, I've tried to get a bit creative. I have written the usual fundraising messages and created a cartoon of Lisa and me next to our little car. But the latest tool to try to entertain in the hope of raising a few quid was the most difficult. You know the text crawl at the beginning of Star Wars films which acts as a bit of a recap and sets the scene for the next part of the story? I decided to do one of them for our trip. A Daft Idea

The final booking has been made. We are now officially booked onto Le Shuttle at Folkestone. This took so much longer than I thought it would. I assumed we would pick a train and sort it out, but choosing our departure time has taken a long time. We seemed to have been discussing this on various nights outs for months so I eventually did some back of a fag packet maths and put it to the group. Leave Liverpool at 07:00, stop at a service station on the other side of Birmin

I posted the little animation I created showing our route on Facebook, and it is fair to say our donations exploded. If they say a picture paints a thousand words, then a daft little cartoon of a 'bread van', as someone in work called it, wiggling its way around Europe generated over £500 for New Start. I met Ellis at work years ago, so I've also sent some of the 'glamour shots' to our Communications Manager. We'll get them on the company website and raise a few more quid f

Yesterday was a big day for us. Not only did Lisa and I get the 'glamour' shots with our little car, but we also managed to race past £1,000 in donations for New Start. A THOUSAND POUNDS! Amazing. It is no exaggeration to say that we are all blown away by the generosity shown already by friends, family and colleagues. We only really set up the JustGiving page to link back to this website and to show New Start that we were serious about raising money for them. It wasn't

We received an email this morning from Bust Rallies HQ confirming that they are sending out our welcome packs, including the documentation we need to complete before we register in Namur. I put the details in our Rally Ravers WhatsApp group for Richie, since he didn't book and wouldn't receive the email, and he started going through the links. He casually said, "This is quite interesting. I wasn't aware of all the permits and stickers," which triggered something in me. I me

With the graphics test fitted and cut to shape, we were in a position to take the 'glamour' shots of the car. A colleague at work had a contact at Aintree Racecourse who agreed we could get some pictures at the home of the most famous horse race in the world. The plan was to go out on the winners' line with the stands in the background and take some pictures, but we saw a grassy hill near the parade ring and decided to do some test shots under the trees first. It turns out,

Today was a big day in our trip preparation as we took the plunge and fitted the magnetic stickers to the car. This involved a lot more measuring, template-making, and cutting than I was expecting. Still, I'm giddy to report that the results are brilliant! The smaller, individual stickers didn't need any work; they are just thrown on the bonnet, boot and sides, so they didn't need any fettling, just a bit of positioning, standing back to see how they looked and then minor t

After its service, we popped out for a blast in the Abarth, which ended up with us having a most agreeable lunch in the Saracen's Head pub up in Halsall - think good pub grub, glorious weather, a beer garden on the side of the canal where we watched the boats inch by - we can highly recommend it. On the way back home, we decided to stop at the Racecourse Retail Park in Aintree to pick up a few bits, which gave me a chance to go to Halfords to get new wiper blades and look at

We are inching closer to being done. The car has just had £860 worth of work, including a fresh MOT, a full service, and new pads and discs all round. Just need to get the air con regassed, and we are there. While at the garage, I also got them to swap the lovely silver alloys for the moody black ones, which better fit the colour scheme. I also had confirmation that we can take the car to Aintree Racecourse for some photos! Our Communications Manager has a contact who has

After the excitement of receiving our magnet pack yesterday, today was filled with 'going to the dentist' levels of dread as the car was going into the garage for its shakedown. Carl did this recently, and it cost him £1,100! To be fair, that did include a service and MOT. I also asked them for a price to change the brake callipers from the standard ones to the red Competitionoze ones I bought when I was drunk. I asked if they could check that they were working and would a

After weeks of firing messages back and forth, pinging over vector files, tweaking designs, and generally harassing the guys over at Colour Create, I received the email I was waiting for: the magnets were printed, cut, and ready to be collected! I hotfooted over to their workshop and was greeted by Kevin with a deceptively small roll of something. Inside were tucked some smaller items that I couldn't make out until he started laying them out on the table. There, in front of

I'm getting increasingly twitchy as time goes on, worried that I have missed something. I knew we needed to fill out an immigration form before boarding the ferry at Bilbao. I also knew that I had to organise one of those 'free A&E cards' for abroad, but wasn't sure what either was or how to do it. A quick online search and we are sorted. For travel to or from the UK, it’s now compulsory to provide Advance Passenger Information (API). This information is required by the U

So the JustGiving page is live so it was time to share it with all our friends and family. The easiest way to do it was to post a message on Facebook with a link to our page. We put it on and let the power of social media do its thing. I also sent the updated JustGiving link to the rest of Team Ellis, and they promptly spammed their friends - good work, guys! Below is the message I put on: [...] Me and Lisa, along with four friends (Richie, Rachel, Carl and Matt), are emba

Today has been a big day for us all as the JustGiving page officially went live. Lisa's mum and dad gave us some cash to sponsor us, and she put it on the system in their name. The first contribution was on the board. Not long after, there were two, then three. Within an hour, we had over £200 in the coffers! I'd spoken to brother-in-law Tommy, who was trying to create a link that would auto-fill our suggested amounts when people clicked the donate link, but alas, he coul

We are getting to the sharp end now, as there are around 30 days left before we head off into Europe in our glorified shopping trolleys and our mini-SUV. It is time to complete some of the outstanding tasks before we leave, one of which is properly setting up the fundraising page. Speaking to Steve Fowler, he suggested setting up our own JustGiving page linked to the New Start charity, so we can see how much we have raised for their campaign. We can all send out the same li