Nice work mate. +rep for you! Very noble of you to be so open about it especially on a forum like TSR. People here can be very arrogant and patronising if you didn't get 9A*s and go to Oxbridge!
As some of you may know I am in a similar position. My GCSE's were not good enough to take the subjects I originally wanted to study at my sixth form, so I had to go to my local college. I originally opted to study maths, accounting, physics and ICT. Everything went down hill, I had an awful work ethic, poor attendance and generally didn't care at all about studying, never revised etc. I finished the year with one AS grade, a D in ICT.
Now after this I had to think long and hard about what I wanted to do. I'd wasted a year, I wasn't sure if my college would take me back because I'd been such an awful student. I got another chance, changed my subjects, this time I studied biology, psychology, chemistry (dropped chem) and English. This time I got BBC at AS and then BBC at A2. I had a conditional offer to study biomedical science at Dundee university. BUT, after much deliberation I decided I would cancel and change for mechanical engineering with a foundation year. There was no guarantee that with my background I would be offered anything by any of the unis I would choose. It was not a light-hearted decision, I spoke to my parents, girlfriend, friends and family (uncle is a civil engineer and 2nd cousin in law is lecturer at Bristol uni for EEE)
I searched for every university that offered a foundation. Some weren't suitable because they wanted physics and/or maths to AS minimum, some wanted one to A2 etc, so I had to be very selective. Eventually choosing Brighton, Loughborough, Sussex, Aston and Oxford Brookes. I received unconditionals from all the of them except Sussex as I withdrew. I knew I was going to put Loughborough as my firm, as it was unconditional I didn't need an insurance.
So here I am now, waiting to start university, trying to learn as much maths and physics as I can during my gap year to catch up and what I have missed. To be fair I couldn't be happier, even if it is going to be a lot of hard work. I think what Coffey says is really valuable to people like us who may have been in a similar position and have contemplated giving up. There are plenty of routes into university, even if your grades aren't good enough for your 'dream university'.
On a side note my 27 year old brother is also finally going to university (he couldn't bare the fact that I would be university educated and he wouldn't, good incentive
). He has a conditional for Cardiff university, he is currently finishing his access course at the same college I did my A-levels.