Premier Inn Sheffield (Arena)

... the gorge up the gorge” debacle followed by kilometres of what, bog? on top of a mountain?!! where the hell were we?!! Also, damn the reservoir where, having run out of water, Ryan requested that I wade in and try and get some water for boiling. Cold! Muddy! Undrinkable! Squidgy!

... I was walking on. They’d paved the path with boulders?! On purpose?!

This was when my leg started coming out of its socket.

The Greedy Sheep Incident

Pennine sheep are in some parts greedy having been feed by walkers they rather expect food now. They will sneak up behind you but if you wave a stick they kind of run away and wait for you to stop paying attention again. I asked Ryan (remorseless *******) to watch ...

... raining still!

It has been a bit of a blur today, as well as the Royal Marsden we have been to Addenbrookes in Cambridge, THe Queen Elizabeth in Birmingham and now I am sitting in a cosy front room in Sheffield with a real fire!
I am excited about tomorrow as we will be going back to my home town of Newcastle. Yippee!!
I have taken a few pictures of the day.

... the CHANGE. I don't particularly like change, but I like to take myself out of my comfort zone sometimes and see what I can handle. Keep challenging myself.

Keeping this short, otherwise it will get VERY boring. More time for fun stories and escapades then! xox

WOW what a week! No sooner had we unpacked our bags and repacked our belongings into storage we were packing again to start our adventure! We had only a very short time to catch up with family before we were saying our goodbyes again. Although we never thought we'd be ready our bags are finally packed and were on the train down to London Kings Cross. We are very tired so hope to get some sleep on the overnight flight to Nairobi.

... signs of pagan symbols painted on fabric. As they draw closer towards the monument, a few branch off here and there and create small circles while holding hands and chanting something that is completely unknown to me. This proceeds around the whole of stonehenge until there is one more group that makes the biggest circle of them all, where the main ceremony is held. Unfortunately, we could only watch part of it, as we had to leave with our tour bus to go on towards Bath.

... That sounds so amazing!! I want to hitchhike, hahaha. Later, since it was one of Tom's housemate's birthdays, we went out to the pubs. I tried the local Sheffield beer called Moonshine. Oh, and it was confirmed that the street signs in England make it difficult to navigate. So it's not just me. I talked to this one English guy who totally agreed with me ...

... items I would lie to take back with me. Having decided to go on the Heathrow Express at Paddington, I managed to locate the bus going to that destinattion only to find that I was standing on the wrong platform for ages! Anyhow, once I arrived at the station, rode to Heathrow and got on my flight...I felt excited! I flew Emirates going via Dubai to Beijing, then a domestic flight to Xian. It was the first time flying with Emirates ...

It has been pointed out to me that I omitted a starting point for my trip so here it is, an entry for Sheffield, England, just to make the map a leedle bit prettier....or should that be Manchester, seeing as that was my first airport, or London Heathrow as that's where I left the country? Oh decisions decisions....

... Hard Rock Cafe to complement her earlier purchases in Cardiff and Edinburgh, but we became frustrated with the pre-Christmas lunch-time rush in the city centre, the heavy traffic, the complicated one way street system and a succession of completely full multi-storey car parks.

With the dicey conditions making for a slippery drive down the M1, I left Ali not far outside Nottingham, where she was to spend Christmas with her ...