It’s been a long road since failing to inspire the kickstarter community to back this project;  I’ve lived through a loss of purpose that grew into a knowing determination to take this dream to task, lest I be an overturned turtle spinning between the lanes of a road to nowhere.

Moving right along… and I’m pouring over meagre resources, sidestepping the wallow of hopelessness, and refusing to entertain any thought but those of blessing. May the winds blow.

I’ve a (very) small trailer filled (half) with records, paint cans and stencils… my family set ourselves upon the road to discover what could be done on the streets, performing along our way to visit elderly relatives in Italy’s south.

With both time and money having been in relatively short supply, only the most urgent tasks were taken to hand prior to departure; leaving many creative efforts to be undertaken en-route.

The first item on our creative agenda was to work out where we were going and on which direction we were going to travel. We already knew the end result was to be Puglia, south Italy, tho’ the largest question in mind was whether to go via Amsterdam and the Germanic countries, or go thru France and perhaps Rome.

After a good part of our first day on the outskirts of Calais – reading forums and attending to matters such as food and – believe it or not – preparing stencil for cutting – right in the public carpark of the local Auchan hypermarket. We eventually instructed the GPS navigator to avoid toll and motorway routes and set us upon a meander towards Paris.

‘Plan was to arrive in Paris at sometime during mid morning and thus, our first stop in Precy, some 45 km northish of Paris, was ideally located for sleep before our timely arrival. Map (GPS), said there was a park nearby, which ended up being a train station carpark! Thank goodness for Saturday! We awoke to an empty car park and used the plywood lid of the trailer to produce the t-shirt designs I had prepared back in Calais; with name and website all over to avoidance the ‘some guy I saw’ reference. A passerby suggested we would be more comfortable at a local park by a river, and by grass, we were!

With music blaring and stencils cutting, the kids played games on a rug. A few local boys passed by, and later introduced themselves with a bottle of whiskey and an invitation to jump off a bridge. YES!!!!

Before time came to go, the fellows asked me for a stencil print souvenir, so we did have some fun indeed!

In the middle of all that, I still did complete the planned Tshirt on that day – two of them, actually.

We finally, finally left for Paris and… would you believe it? We found free parking not two blocks from the Eiffel tower! For two nights we slept there! Tourism doesn’t come any better than that!

I can hardly wait for tomorrow! Bring it on!!!

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