At that time, and since, I’ve generally settled for Rosie over Kate, but thought that perhaps, on a longer trip around Europe, I’d go with Kate.

Well, I’m mid way through our second Euro road trip, and thought I post a few new findings. Both Rosie and Kate have maps current as of Spring 2010.

First of all, I decided from the outset to use Rosie for all navigation needs yet still have Kate on the windscreen to show a 2D overview map and to list current speed and limit in km/h (Rosie doesn’t show speed limits).

As a test (and a backup) I’d plan my routes in Kate first, then keep her passive whilst in the car.

Amazingly, though, Kate didn’t know the first three addresses we wanted to go to – Reims, Aix-les-Bains (France) and Stresa (Italy). Not only did Rosie understand the addresses, but she also knew the hotels.

Rosie also wins when planning a more interesting route.

With Kate, you tell her to use a particular waypoint – a small town, intersection or to avoid something… all a bit fiddly.

With Rosie, I tried this initially, but gave up and just said: take me to xxx. But pleasingly, Kate will offer a few variations on the route that, so far, has including the interesting things I wanted to do.

So Kate is very techie, very algo-oriented and Rosie just seems to know the best way to get places.

An aside to this is the way Kate deals with toll roads. You either have them or not. With Rosie, she shows a selection of routes with the amount of time on toll roads shown for each (they’re much harder to avoid in mainland Europe, and in Switzerland, all motorways are toll roads).

Well, we’re only half way though this trip so plenty of time for navigation disasters, but so far for France, Italy and Switzerland, Rosie definitely wins.

Being on a diet, however, I was a lot more conscious of what I was doing, did a lot more exercise (walking mostly) and ended the weekend with no gain (and no loss) of weight.

I call this a good result.

Now I’m back in stricter mode and hope to lose a kg by the end of the week.

I rejected Android, because most people I know who use Android spend half their time finding the latest ROM, much of their time  bitching about how various things don’t work properly, and the rest sneering at iPhone users.

Not a crowed I wanted to be associated with.

I also rejected buying an iPhone unlocked from Apple, because that required begging Apple to let you have one (well, registering and waiting for weeks).

In the end I procured one on Vodafone from the Carphone Whorehouse with 18 month contract (I tend to keep phones for 18-24 months anyway).

This was good. It arrived the next day. It cost me £260, with £60 cashback from Quidco and £156 back for old phone from Mazuma. I paid for it on a card with 0% for 12 months so there’s a little bit of saving there too.

Keeping with non-fanboi-ism, I can confirm that it does dramatically lose signal when holding it in a certain way (though no dropped calls yet) and the dickie proximity sensor is a bit annoying.

Overall, though, I’m pleased.

And that’s all that matters really.

Two weeks zooming around Europe, although fewer stops this time and therefore more time at each place.

The Italian lakes, the Alps and Austria will feature highly.

This will be the first long trip for Rosie so really looking forward to the Alps and some derestricted bits in Germany on the way there/back

But more, I’m looking forward to three separate relaxing minibreaks.

Of course, the electricity has to come from somewhere, so why not get a wheezy, dirty old diesel generator? And put it in the boot.

It’s fantastic. You get to show off your green credentials, save a load of money, yet still have the convenience of filling up at the pump

The weekend was great. I caught up with brother and his family, including little George who is now two weeks old.

Then up to darkest Oxfordshire for the chilling, chatting and the aforementioned Beer and Curry(tm) with chums.

After trawling through the nutritional database, I can safely say that I blew my daily intake quota by more than a factor of two on Saturday evening

Sunday was better, although I did have a choccy biscuit.

Overall, though, things are not too bad. Today, I’m back on the wagon, about 600 kcals under my daily quota, and not too peckish.

Tomorrow morning, I may risk a weigh-in, so keep an eye on the weight widget over on the right

Over that period, however, I’ve been walking less, and less quickly, lifting less and generally doing even less cardio and resistance work than usual. As a result my weight crept up higher, and wasn’t stopping.

So I needed a plan.

Since last Sunday, I’ve been calorie counting, and according to the website I use for tracking, I’ve lost 3kg in six days. I’ve put a live banner on the right of this blog (should you be reading it manually).

It’s not been too bad, trying to hit around 1600 kcals a day, and in all but one day, I finished under.

This weekend will be a challenge though.

Visiting my brother this morning for some pre-birthday jolity, then off to Oxfordshire for Beer And Curry ™.

I’ll probably be well off the wagon by Sunday afternoon

So I’ve switched to the 2010 WP default – not exactly pleasing but will have to do for now.

Usually, this are spam/scams and the get ignored, however this one claimed to be from the BBC and Nissan, didn’t appear to be asking for any money, and was offering to “spend an entire day learning to drive like the Stig, at Dunsfold Park where Top Gear is filmed!”

Well, scam or no, I wasn’t going to pass this up, so I checked the existence of person sending the email, replied and it all seemed valid.

Moving forward, yesterday morning, I find myself rolling up at the Top Gear studios in Rosie, spotted the hanger, that 747 that’s always parked out on the runway, and getting a bit of tingle up the spine.

I ventured into the plush (ie, a shed) production office where I was immediately not killed or robbed, but asked to sign waivers and other things, then given a grey (Clarkson Team) hat and offered breakfast.

There were 20 winners in total plus half a dozen Nissan people, so quite crowded, and a little noisy with chatting and eating, then, The Sting came among us. He (it?) stood there in his characteristic folded arms pose, then one of his handlers asked, “so who’d like a photo with The Stig?”

So off we went to the hanger (where TG audiences go) and we queued. Some people tried to look cool, make jokes, do the rabbit ears thing, one even tried to hug him. I thought I’d go for The Stig pose, but mostly looked awkward and not a picture I wan’t to share… but here we go anyway

The day was split up into a series of events.

Track time in the Nissan 370Z (with GT pack), an “old style Le Mans” auto test, some time with a Batak machine and Gran Turismo 5, then a drive out into the local countryside in 370Z roadsters.

As it would turn out, I was lucky enough to be in Clarkson team that went out on track first, then Le Mans, Batak and road test.

So, donning a hard hat, jumping in the 370Z near the start/finish line I had two familiarisation laps with the instructor driving. I had done some preparation for this: watching all the TG re-runs on Dave and studying the satellite imagery of the track, but nothing quite prepares you for the awesomeness of actually being on that track. More spine tingling, and perhaps not enough listening to the instructor, as I then had two practise laps for myself.

The Crooner Curves don’t really count as a corner, but the turn in to Wilson is hard to spot, and I had forgotten the lines, but picked up pace, past the tyres and right into Chicago, again not really getting an appreciation of the space.

Then zooming down to the Hammer Head, more or less getting the entry right, but  fairly slow out. I knew the corner opens up, but until you’re there, you don’t really get how wide a runway is.

Flat out then, and in to The Follow Through – “did you lift?” as Clarkson always asks, well in the Z you break a bit before entry then…. I got lost. My greatest fear for the day. The problem is that the track is a figure of eight, so I’d been here before and thought I needed to go around again :-S A bit of correction, then past the tyres and to the left into Bentley Bend and onto my favourite part of the track. Again, hard to spot the turn-in, but traveling quite quickly here, break then turn hard into the Second To Last Bend. If you get it right, it’s brilliant. Brief jab on the brakes, then into Gambon and across the line.

( A good track guide is here )

My second practise lap was not much better, but my three timed laps were showing a little improvement. I’m sure after another ten laps or so, I’d get the hang of it, but that was that.

A note on the Z. It’s quite sporty, very grippy and seems to turn in well (very well), but for 328PS, seems a little underpowered. It’s quite civilised in low gears, has really nice syncro rev match, and at no point did I feel it was going to kill me. Rosie, in contrast is a veritable rocket, fidgety around 2500-3000 rpm and demands a lot more attention, so I suppose engaging in different ways. The RS4 is about two seconds faster around the track in the hands of The Stig, has twice as many seats, more luggage space and costs about as much…. so I don’t think the day was good for Z sales

Right, next event, an autotest around cones, with old style Le Man starts, that is, you run to the car, get in, drive off, do a stint, then park, run out, tag the other driver, then she does her stint. Lots of fun. Traction/stability off, wet track.

The Stig joined us for the Le Mans thing. He got in as a passenger for one of my team’s practise run. How much pressure is that? Driving the Stig? Well apparently he has a sense of humour, fiddling with the radio and knocking the car out of gear.

On my turn, however, there were two problems.

1. It was an automatic. One of those olde worlde torque converter types and bloody awful. Compared to Herman’s DSG it was a joke. Horrid thing.

2. After my stint, I began to run to tag the other driver when something in my leg snapped. Big ouch.

On the positive side, I’d done what I’d come here to do – drive on the TG track, but I was now unable to walk, so had to be looked after by the event staff… and I’d like to say they were all great people.

I sat out the Batak thing and couldn’t even get into the Gran Turismo contraptions, so a bit miserable, then one of the event girls asked if I’d like to sit in with an instructor in the GT-R on the drive out (local country roads).

Yes Please!

If I was at all wavering on the desire for a 370Z it was completely shafted from being in the GT-R. Even faster than Rosie and the DSG transmission makes for smooth progress around the twisty roads. It doesn’t sound as nice as Rosie’s V8 but there are certain compensations. The instructor reckoned it was comparable in experience to an R8 V10 (as aspiration of mine) so there’s something to look forward to

At the end of the day, I still couldn’t walk, didn’t win any prizes (I think my times were middle of group, certainly nothing to shout about), so thought about leaving. I really couldn’t walk (and still struggle today) so wondered how I was going to drive home. Fortunately, moving my right ankle was painless, so unless I needed to brake heavily I should make it home and did so.

Big smile on face from the experience, slightly dampened by the injury.

And like the TG/Nissan website says, only twenty people will know what it’s like, and I was one of them.

This time, I wanted to return to the area, drive over the Llanberis Pass (a few times), but maybe see something different.

We picked Bodysgallen Hall for the place to stay, a little way outside of Llandudno, but close enough to the mountains for a blast.

We never made it into Llandudno itself, but did have a tour around Anglesey, a rather splendid place, especially the north side where we had a wander around Bull Bay.

The area in general reminds me a lot of the Alps, strangely enough. Llanberis Pass is as good as the San Bernadino and the A55 from Conwy down to Bangor is very much like the tunnel sections to the west of Geneva. You really don’t have to go that far to get good roads. Rosie loves them.

The area is also well stocked with Shell garages, essential for feeding a thirsty girl as they all sell V-Power

Well, that’s it for another bank holiday. The next one in August will probably see us on another Euro road trip; a different route this time, but I’m sure the Alps will feature again…

-

Satnav Note: Kate didn’t see any use this trip. I’ve completely switched over to Rosie’s built-in satnav. There may be plusses and minuses, but Rosie wins out over all.

Tech Note: Usually, I take the MacBook with me on trips, for keeping in touch, planning routes, checking out local tourist things, etc. On this trip, the iPad made its debut (with the MacBook as backup). The iPad completely met my needs, however, and the MacBook stayed in its case. In fact, it hasn’t come out since we returned.