After pushing the car to start it in Cardiff, and being too frightened to stop until we reached home even to buy water or food, we for some reason took A roads home up to Gloucester. In pure synchronicity the radio kicked into PJ Harvey's The Last Living Rose just as we crossed the boarder into England. 

Wales hadn't been bad in itself, but we'd been very ill on Southport overindulgence and feeling low since Blackpool really. Dan was both hungover and in pain from his back, grunts from the rear seat being his main way of communicating. The car trouble wasn't helping my mood either—I'm sure jump starting it isn't good in the long run and for the price of an hour or so I was sure there was a Kwik Fit (or in Wales a Kwijky Fitwy) to pop to. 

We'd always said piers were just a hook to hang the narrative on, and by now the routine of visiting was very well established: drive into town scanning the horizon, spot the pier, hunt for free parking on a hill (or at least the flat to make pushing easier), walk to the pier and onto it if possible, stopping to write notes, hunt for postcards, decide if the town had anything to offer…

By this point the pier archetypes were easy to spot: pretty empty, closed/in ruins, fading commercialism, and community revived. So we were even more hunting for the odd or for people to talk to. People that weren't us were a relief; after a few days male conversation falls into nods and tropes so students, bar-staff, shop owners, especially lighthouse keepers has been welcome breaks.

But when we hit the last pier, an emptiness.

What now?

Well, first for me, mind detox, reading up on my Authurian Legends as they hit me many times round the country, counting the recipets to see how much we spent and getting the car fixed. For us we've got to write the book. That might take a while, but months rather than years, and sort out a publisher.

So as our beautiful funders, one last thing—ask us any questions you like here in the comments and we'll answer them if we can. Completely honestly, honest:

It does mean that the really arduous part is last, loads of two hour plus drives along wind-y bendy roads that scream "Araf" at you when you least expect it. To get back on the motorway home later today will be a blessing, suspect the feeling of returning to England will be as good as hitting that last goddam pier.

Worried this has all been too easy? A fourteen-day challenge tossed off in a mere eleven day?

After a dissapointing trip to Anglesey, to a Beaumaris pier that's being worked on (new struts Davd who works on the 'i can see it from here' Bangor pier says) we return to the car to find it not doing what a car should do. Go.

It isn't starting, Midge diagnoses a flat battery or a starter motor problem, so we try a push start—it goes but we have to turn off the radio, the phone charger and the air blower as we need to conserve energy. I offered to sing the songs that came up on the 'What's on 6 Music' Twitter feed, but the mood in the car was too dark for that. It also didn't seem to want a trip to Portmerrion, the Prisoner fantasy scene from the book will have to come from memory. 

Stopping for petrol we prayed that the battery was charged enough to get the car going again, it was about to get significantly heavier. It did so we risked the radio, mood lightened, the sun crept out over a valley, and Bret bloody Anderson came on.

When we stopped at Aberystwyth, though, no joy. A series of bump-starts on hills gets us to the campsite, where we park on a slope and leave this note.

But only two more to go before our own beds.

It's freshers week and we found a gaggle of lost new students in the Hawaiian Ballroom (where bizarrely it was Christmas).

Tried to keep up with them on shots, and failed, it's bad heads in the PierMobile this am as we hit Wales.

We can't check into Pontins till 4pm so Danny is spending the time looking for a laundrette, fresh pants having long since run out.

Across the water, I assume as there's none in plain sight, I can see the Blackpool Tower. The Blackpool funk lifted on this morning as we drove through the Pontins gates, Brett Anderson's trip anthem kicking in on the radio at exactly the right moment.

This is the third act, the validation. You have to go back to the beginning to get the strength to carry on.

I'm sitting on a bench by a fairly substantial pond (which may be a wide, slow moving, part of a brook—it's not easy to tell) watching the ducks which woke me some hours ago. This happens a lot when camping I'm discovering, the hardened adventurers both have earplugs. I've been dealing with this normally by enjoying the lush scenery most of our campsites have provided, getting up when I wake and then going for a run along the seafront. Here though, we're too far inland to sea the sea, the fields are too muddy and I'm not barmy enough to run down an A road just yet.

So, I've showered in the wild west style facilities (they're both deliberately themed that way and of about the same standard) and come to read my book by the pond. Today is our last English pier, our last seven are in Wales so I feel bad I've not quite finished JB Priestley's An English Journey. My copy has become more of a totem than a useful object, there's precious little opportunity to read on the trip, I've been carrying it with me everywhere though and along with a new affectation of touching all craven images of Elvis we encounter it's keeping me in some sort of routine.

Nothing quite dampens the mood than Blackpool though. Crass consumerism, rotting facades and not a single smile to be seen in the four hours we spent there. Well there was one, on the face of the young reporter from the Blackpool Gazette who seemed to find our quest hilarious. We posed for pictures by Central Pier and shared an unspoken bond that although we all knew the place was vile none of us could say. We parted with us all a little in love with her.

But then we've fallen a day behind schedule, and trying to shift that booking is proving impossible. Two phone calls yesterday and three this am and they're now not acknowledging we exist. Not sure what's happening, but we press on down route 66 to Scotch Corner then a sharp right and on to Blackpool.