Riviera Hotel Bournemouth

... 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!

Hello everybody

We are still alive and well. We are in Cambodia at the moment. Apoligies for not sending any travel blogs for a while. As we're are trying to do 2 blogs at the same time it has become too much to keep both of them going simultaneously, so this one has been neglected for a while. If any of you are interested in our travels I can add your email ...

Sophia>>>>>
Right it is Wednesday the 11th November we'll be departing in a few days!!!! Realy getting excited and a bit nervous now just thinking this time next week i will be on the other side of the world!!! Busy time now though ahead last jabs tomoz as well as seeing katie and lexie for the last time till i get back!! Then the evening ...

... we watched a show every night except one and an English pub called the rising Sun where a pint of Boddingtons cost £2.60. Very reasonable I thought. Anyway for the first time in eleven days we were looking at rain and gloom, but by the time we got to the Railway Station is was brightening up a bit. the trip back to Scarborough and then on to Whitby was uneventful. We were home for 19:00.

... I even saw a picture of the bathing compartments pulled by horses into the water so people could swim without anyone seeing them in their swimmers. I'm presuming it was for the women! I also presume their swimmers were neck to ankle... lol what would they think these days!!

I was going to have lunch on the pier but they weren't selling any food.. ah well you can't have it all your own way!

After being with my uncle for a couple of weeks I headed to the New Forest to stay with friends of mum and dads for a while. They live in a beautiful part of the county, surrounded by a National Forest. Its full of wild horses, pigs, cows and donkeys. They just walk around the forest, across roads etc. So its a bit dangerous.. well i think so anyway.

I went for lots of bike rides through the forest, some in the forest itself and some along the ...

... people coming from London to take in the sea air and take to the water, ie the spas! Jane Austen apparently stayed in Southampton for a time as well.

The last night with the Smiths and we had a bit of a party night, I bought Indian... the music was put on and we were dancing and Olly was playing with his guitar and the dogs!

... service men were stationed in the Metropol Hotel. When the bomb destroyed the hotel all the bodies were recovered but one. During the blast the clock tower on the library building was damaged. A couple of months later maintenance on the clock tower was scheduled and the lost body of the service man was discovered. He had been blown from the hotel across the street and thrown into the clock tower. His body was entangled in the clockworks. I tried to do some research to ...

... recommendations for caloric intake for men/women noted. We returned to the hotel and they went to the home of Louise Spencer (an arts faculty member at BPC) in Poole (a neighboring town a few miles away). Along the way we paused to notice a placard marking an area that was once the home of the author Robert Louis Stevenson. Louise and her significant other (Chris) served us a wonderful dinner of roast beef, Yorkshire pudding (gravy in a bread "cup ...