City Lodge Salisbury

... like Jane Austen. Highlights for me were the Jane Austen centre and the Roman Baths, which have a great museum built around them and a very extensive audio guide included in the ticket price. We were also lucky enough to be in Bath during their Christmas market, which was massive and so crowded that they had officials and police controlling the flow of people walking around the stalls!

The Bath Abbey is also worth a look and just wandering around ...

... Michael's Church to help us sort and pack the boxes. You are all stars...

We can't wait to start seeing the smiling faces of people receiving your shoeboxes and we promise to keep you up to date with where we are, who we meet and the reaction your gifts receive.

Check back on Monday when the Trussell team will reach Bulgaria and start distributing your shoeboxes to men, women and children living in poverty...

Booked flight today - Guatemala on Feb 22nd 2010. So to mark the occasion I thought I'd start my travel diary today as well.

Two months to go - and a lot of list-making, planning, shopping, getting vaccinated, freaking out, and bouncing with excitement to do!

... TWO WHOLE WEEKS, and I can’t wait! I haven’t been to Italy since I was a teenager, and Murray has never been there! It will be fantastic to visit Italy together – and I am dubbing this part of the trip the honeymoon we never had (due to that pesky house fire after our wedding!).

Thank you, England, for a few much-needed days of rest and relaxation. And THANK YOU, Wright and Glassock families, for your friendship, generosity, and hospitality!!!

Said goodbye to Ed at the station in Newcastle and caught the train to Enfield just north of London to collect the motorhome (“campervan” in Australian). From there we had our first experience of the English Motorway as we drove to Salisbury in the south-east. Taking that wide vehicle through some of those village roads was a tad scary – there is not much room for error when the stone wall is just ...

... pub name in England, with more than 480 pubs in England bearing that name.

We got to Bath and saw the Roman baths which were very interesting, and after that we got to explore Bath on our own. We didn't have much time after taking so long at the Roman Baths, so there wasn't much we could do besides walking around the city and enjoying the architecture surrounding us. Bath is a beautiful place. I would definitely like to spend more ...

... not to realize it." Once on the bus, everyone wanted to sleep, however our overly enthusiastic London Blue Badge tour guide Calvin made this rather impossible since he insisted on commenting on nearly every road sign that we passed and repeating the history of Stonehenge, over and over and over again on the bus speaker system. Now, I would give you details about the history of Stonehenge and how those rocks (megaliths) got there, but once again, it was 7:30 in the ...

... favourites and for things we missed last time. A day would definitely not be long enough to do it all! Had a lovely day although extremely exhausting. Next day we drove up to Le Havre from where we couldn't get a ferry so slept in a rest area and then had to get up at 5am to zoom across to Caen and on to the 8.45 ferry back to Portsmouth! Had a very enjoyable time on the ferry, kids play area, disco, magician, balloon making, henna tatooing.... Loads to do! And so to Salisbury..........

... I like that. Kingston Lacy was design by the 'first' man in Britain to take the name of 'architect' Roger Platt. Later, Charles Barry (who designed the House of Parliament), finished the house to the version we see today. My favorite 3 things about the house are the Marble staircases, the State Bedroom and the Tent Rooms. In the State Bedroom is a grand bed , with exuberant carves, of walnut and holly, including the Bankes (The Bankes family commissioned the house ...

... because he almost dropped me! Then later, we were talking about the English military vs the US military and Adam decided that he was going to do some cart-wheels and apparently that's the English word for push-ups because that's what he ended up doing. He got in the middle of the street and was doing push-ups! We also met a guy named Seb (short for Sebastian) who was really nice. We decided to go back into the club but we lost James and Adam on ...