Back to what Gengis said...
If you have a couple of hundred a month to spend, my advice would be to save five or six hundred and do a one or two week gliding course in the summer at a club near to you. This should easily get you to solo standard. Spend that couple of hundred each month by gliding every week if you can. You should easily make bronze C within the year which (I think ... the rules may have changed) gets you about 15 or 20 hrs off a PPL, and teaches you LOADS! save over the following winter then either go NPPL or JAR PPL or even Stateside and hit the PPL training hard next summer.
I know this seems a bit long winded but you'll be all the better equipped to quickly and easily do your PPL for the experience.
SS