Germany 2006 Episode 1
From London to Frankfurt

Saturday 3rd June (Andy)

Well, after brushing aside the Hungarians, after a shaky start, we seemed to hit top gear early against Jamaica and hit them for six. I was hoping that the game would peter out just before half time as my 11/2 4-0 to England bet was looking shaky! Still, the tall man got three and a system seems to be established. I wonder where Peter Crouch will be in about 4 weeks time. Scorer of a vital winner or two, anyone? And what a Derby. I reckon it is an Omen. Sir Percy pulled off one of the greatest wins of all time -I reckon this could be a great summer for all of us!

Sunday 4th June (Andy)

The doors of your mind open every day – just remember where you left the keys! A re-run, in fact two re-runs of the Great Escape courtesy of UK Gold stopped me from doing anything else today, but a traditional lazy Sunday bore forth a fantastic episode in the documentary series World Cup Stories. Telling the story of the Germans at the World Cup, it gave me a completely different perspective. The 1954 ‘Miracle of Bern’ was a revelation - what a team performance and just look at what that win did for West Germany.

Just think what a win for England would do for us. I have to admit, I really did enjoy that and simply have to see the film of the same name now. So perceptions change, indeed like Chris Moyles’s performance in the X Factor, you have to take your hat off to those who you felt were arrogant and admire talent and application, even if arrogance ends up surfacing in the end. Peter Crouch for the Golden Boot?

Thursday 8th June (Andy)

We're on our way, we are Roon's deadly two...

Here we go again...

Early start today, and with more kit than Ranulph Fiennes would take for 10 weeks in Antartica.

We've got everything - books, music, more electrical gear than we know what to do with (why can't we have one universal charging device for all these gizmos?) and of course shoes. Well at least Kirsty won't be going short on all those 'walks'.

Destination Waterloo with all the 'Smithers Jones' brigade and the Eurostar. My iPod is loaded with everything I need for every mood... right now it is all the cheesy football songs. It's the FIFA World Cup (as one wag has commented, Jules Rimet does not await us, the FIFA World Cup is at stake...yes, yes, but Jules Rimet scans better!) and we are off to Paris to collect our camper van.

Vindaloo anyone?

Thursday 8th June (Kirsty)

Bonjour campers, from Chalons en Champagne

Well, it's been a bit of an adventure already! Before we even get out of the country, laden with most of the possessions that we own, it was especially tricky as I had a huge great quilt strapped to to the top of my unfeasibly large bag on wheels. Of course this monstrosity was too huge to fit through the security scanning machine at Waterloo, so I had a bit of a wrangle with the French security man... due to the language barrier I thought I could get away with calling him a trumped-up traffic warden (I apologise to any genuine traffic wardens) - unfortunately he got the general gist and, needless to say, I'm off his Christmas card list forever.

Welcome to Chez Payne

After drawing attention to myself I then decided to instruct Andy on how to successfully skip past the rozzers without incident, as he was scowling due to the delay with the monstrosity (the bag, not the bloke) in front of a row of heavily armed and beefed-up SWAT- style police.

I sidled over to him and stage-whispered from the corner of my mouth “Darling, please try to look more family-orientated” but when he beamed at the copper he was instantly pulled to one side. After a full security check on Andy (they weren't interested in me - I don't think I looked aggresive enough but they hadn't seen me a few minutes before at the scanning machine) then we were belatedly on our way and late as usual!

On the train Andy yet again bumped into someone he knows. This happens constantly wherever we go; we could be anywhere in the world and we'll hear someone shouting out the name 'Andy' or 'Payney' and, lo and behold, there's usually some large unusual-looking bloke shaking his hand. No doubt throughout this trip, as in Japan, Portugal and every other tournament he's been to, there will be someone shouting 'Payney'!

So, on to the Champagne region of France in our trusty hired camper van (Andy's taken loads of pictures of it so if he can work the technology then hopefully you can see it) where we wrote the script to 'Carry on Anniversary'. I'll let my lovely husband of one year explain...

Thursday 8th June (Andy)

Carte rouge and deja vu...

Bonjour messieurs et madames. Well we have finally got into France but, somewhat like The Great Escape in reverse, it was not without a caper. Security at Waterloo Eurostar was intense and it must have been my smiling face and pleasant nature that made the officer armed to the nines decide to pull me over for a full security once over. This goes to show that the authorities are taking the whole issue of who is leaving these shores very seriously, at least if you are leavimg from Waterloo... So, having been checked out as not being a category C hooligan I was issued with a special red card (so one can show that your details have been checked in case you get pulled over again) and wished "Good luck". Kirsty being Kirsty did not want to lose out, and asked the copper for a red card as well, so if you want to see what it looks like, ask her when we get back...

The Eurostar for those who have not used it is a truly superb way of travelling, and it always leaves spot on time. Punctuality is not necessarily the Payne's specialist subject and, what with the 20-minute interlude from our friends in blue, getting aboard was a scrape, especially when Kirsty decided she had to find the toilet and we were ticketed to ride on carriage 17. As the train has 18 carriages and is about 1/4 of a mile long, this meant we had twenty five yards short of a quarter mile mile walk to get on the damn thing. So with 40 seconds to go we finally got aboard. I reckon this will be one of many narrow escapes againt the clock, and that is wthout the England team kicking a ball!

As the train pulled into Ashford, who steps aboard but an old mate from West Ham who I have not seen for years. I asked him what the security was like... "Nothimg at all and never saw anyone". So any ne'er-do-wells note, if you want to get to Germany, depart from Ashford ;-)). Not that Tony was actually going to Germany, of course, he was taking his kids to Paris for a holiday!

So with Tony and Co. safely off to Paris we promptly stood in a queue at Gare du Nord for an hour to get a cab. The highlight of this hour was a woman from LA on the phone to someone talking about her journey over from London: "Oh yes, the train was full. There are loads of people travelling to World Cup (note deliberate ommission of the word 'the') - oh yes, it is very big in Europe." Mmmm, not a big thing in Asia and South America, then?

Eventually we got to the St Cloud district of Paris to collect the camper van. Well blow me if it wasn't the exact same place I had collected the same style of vehicle eight years ago for France '98! It was even the same husband and wife team who served me last time and he was as helpful and friendly as he was then. Top stuff. We had to watch a 15-minute video designed to get you familiar with your new 'motorhome', which passed me by in the exact same way as it did the first time round, but at least Kirsty was paying attention!

'ello...

So after much tweaking of dials, opening and closing of valves and general switching, we were off. I had to phone my oldest and loyalest England compadre, Robert, and tell him I was in a camper van driving round the narrow streets of Paris. I reckon he may be thinking of coming out to join me... just like we always end up doing, just like he did when we played Brazil.

So off we set with our compass and maps pointing towards Germany. This time, though, we were not going 'on instinct' but we had the reliable Tom and his brother Tom with Kirsty ably assisting. Predictable traffic strangled our journey out of Paris as we headed to the Champagne region of north-western France, destination Reims or Chalons en Champagne. As it was our first wedding anniversaire on Wednesday, a romantic meal in a rustic restaurant with fine French cuisine and rich wines awaited.

As we pulled off the motorway to get to our campsite, I glanced at the mass of caravans and white vans to my left and wondered how a field could possibly be 4 star? It looked like a pikey camp in Gillingham, indeed it was (a pikey camp that is) but fortunately this was not our destination.

Phew, or so we thought. Eventually we found our way to the 'camping en Champagne' site and settled in for the night. Sadly, it was more Walton-on-the-Naze than En Champagne. There were no rustic restaurants, no little bars - in fact there was nothing. The 'cafe' on the campsite was run by a bloke who reminded me of Peter Butterworth from the 'Carry On' films, sporting a Hawaiian shirt and missing hampsteads. For Canard a l'orange, Champagne and foie gras, read omelette and chips, diet Coke and a bottle of local plonk suitable for washing my dentures after a week in the Gobi desert. We were at 'Ells Bells en France. Plastic tables and chairs, catering containers of 'moutarde de groot' (whatever that is), ketchup and mayonnaise, scavenging dogs at our feet and fellow diners chain smoking whilst eating... we sat back and took in the unique ambience. Handily located near to the rubbish bins and telephone boxes, what more could you want for on your first night of adventure and living on the edge?

And so to bed, a long a day of travelling really does take it out of you. One tip, though, when parking these type of vehicles, never park on a slope. As you will see from the photograph of 'chez Payne' there are sleeping quarters situated above the driver's cab and gravity certainly had its wicked way. I spent the night fighting may way back up the hill to my bed, which was never a good thing. Lessons learned, I reckon.

Tomorrow is Friday and the World Cup kicks off at last. I reckon it is going to be a cracker!

Friday 9th June (Kirsty)

There is room at the inn

So we hit the road and it's my turn to drive the beast of a vehicle - well, not really a beast, more like a very large lumbering animal that has no teeth! I've been driving the thing for five or more hours today across France and Germany and not only is it huge to drive and park, it also has the speed and torque of a nun on a zimmer frame. Now that was fine as we made our way across France but then we hit the German autobahns and suddenly I felt like we were taking our lives in our hands. The choice was to act like a ckicken and sit behind a juggernaut looking feeble or slam the camper van into third at ninety K an hour, put yer foot down and hope for the best... My best was scary and cars came hurtling up behind me looking for all the world like they were about to plough into the back of our home and end up covered in remnants of our wardrobe.

On a couple of occasions Andy was pottering around at the absolute hub of our organisation (all right, the dinner table with a map on it) when I attempted one of these white-knuckle, death-defying manoeuvres. I always shouted back and if he answered back then I knew he was concious and so probably all right... I then threw us into the next encounter until we hit Frankfurt.

We had a vote on the way and it was a majority desicion that we would turn up at the campsite near the centre of Frankfurt and pretend that we had a booking! This was decided as a result of discovering that neither of us had conducted any research or indeed booked any campsites for the duration of our trip. Ordinarily this would be fine, but according to the press, one million football fans are descending on Germany and I reckon nine hundred thousand of those are camping. We found this out when we phoned a few sites and everything has been fully booked for weeks. So, as I alluded to earlier, this situation required some cunning strategic thinking... of which we had none, so we decided to lie.

Arrival in Frankfurt at the camping plaz

Now I'm not usually dishonest, however needs must and as it goes I surprised myself and the look of incredulity on my face when we discovered that the campsite had lost 'our booking'! Obviously when embarking on this Oscar-winning performance Andy stayed in the camper van, otherwise he would have been too tempted to join in, which might have ruined everything as he doesn't look very family-orientated. Needless to say, the lovely German campsite owner and her mother found space on the children's play area for this distraught English women and her mysterious camper van shrouded husband and we have now parked up for the night, cracked open a bottle of wine and stuck up the World Cup wall chart that my mate Steve gave me... all is rosy in Chez Payne.

Friday 9th June (Andy)

Can you carry four?

A beautiful morning en 'Ells Bells sees us up with le lark and using the full on-board facilities for the first time. All very nice too. Much hassle with technology - our diaries being sent and lost via PDAs and Blackberries, iPods not working properly and the TomTom telling us we were stil in Paris. But eventually we get on our way. So much for the early start - it is 11.30am and my hip and shoulder feel like I have been sleeping on boulders. This should be great preparation for the next Kilimanjaro climb this October, where we stay in tents and not huts this time round!

Kirsty decided to have a shower (which entails pre heating the water via the gas system) and really enjoyed herself. I followed and found the water lovely and hot - for about a minute. Still, cold showers never did a boy no harm and I am sure this will not be the last one I have on this trip.

Kirsty wisely advised that we should pop into a supermarket and pick up a few supplies for the journey, so a visit to Carrefour beckoned. Apart from the fact that these places are so enormous you have no idea where you are or where anything is, we managed to spend €125 on 'a few bits'. During the experience I get collared by a middle-aged French woman who asks me advice on which year I felt was 'superieur pour vin' - 2004 or 2005. After protesting my ignorance on the subject and lacking the neccessary linguistic skills to carry forth a vibrant debate, she switched into "Don't worry, I too can speak English" mode to try and make me feel better. There simply was no point at all protesting further. 2005 was a great year for wine, eminently superior to 2004, trust me.

The journey out of Carrefour was interesting. We were loaded up like pack ponies, Kirsty telling me she felt like a contestant in 'The World's Strongest Man' and my fingers getting squeezed until they were ready to burst. No matter, back at HQ we loaded the fridge up and made our way to the open road. Max and Paddy have got nothing on us, nothing.

However, we didn't count on our trusty TomTom for further amusement value. As we came round the entrance to Carrefour for the third time, it felt like we were playing a bizarre computer game with a cruddy control interface; we knew where we wanted to go, but felt that we could not get there...

We crossed into Germany at 4pm local time, not a passport or border guard to be seen. Just as I crossed the border, technology gremlins struck again and all the diary script for today was lost. What you are reading now is version Two. Then a few minutes later I got a mail from Mark back in the UK, who is updating this site, to tell me we were having server troubles. You have to laugh, don't you! Gabbi and Andy, mates who are flying out, just texted to say that they were in Zurich having missed their flights, so they would train it over. Sean, Al, Steve, Colin and John (the A team from past cups) are flying in tonight. The plan is coming together, even if there are some hiccups on the way!

Until tomorrow then, our first game, and to think that Kirsty and I are guests of the Paraguayan Football Association.