Southampton Park Hotel

Today several Trussell Trust staff and volunteers have bruised upper arms from loading hundreds of boxes filled with a reocrd breaking 3800+ Christmas Shoeboxes onto a rather large lorry... The bruises were worth it to see the lorry pull away and begin its 2,450km trip to Bulgaria to transform thousands of Christmases.

We have to say a huge thankyou to all those who donated boxes and to all those hardy souls who braved the cold in ...

Hello,

Basically just testing to see if this works, and also cos Rhys told me to do this now. Also, I wanted Alton to appear as a little dot on our map thing. Anyways, we're off on sunday, looking forward to it, and I'm sure we'll miss you all! Bye for now!

Dave

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!

... around a bit and recuperate before the undoubted bustle of London and China in the next couple of weeks.

So that's the past couple of weeks - fairly uneventful, but a nice chance to catch up with people I haven't seen in a while. I might not get a chance to write much more before I get home, since I will have little internet access in London, and I believe it can also be fairly patchy in China, but I will be home on December 15th, and will try to write more updates before then. Bye!

... to our other blog please let me know or alternatively you can search for shunny81 and this is the name of it. There are a few to read but it will take away the boredom on a Friday afternoon.

Hope your all well and the weather is not to bad. Just think of us when its raining having to take shelter of the 35 degree heat.

All the best

Nigel

... and lots of families.

I did some shopping, always a good pick me up!! And took a long walk along the boardwalk.. all the beaches are quite nice around this area, they actually have sand BUT the water is freezing and no waves!!

The pier was interesting.. its quite an old structure and the pictures from the last century were amazing, everyone walking along in their suits and long ...

... Many passengers don't leave the ship they continue playing bridge, God forbid that there weren't any organised sessions planned. One couple played dominoes every day at the same table, only a couple of times did someone beat them to their table and it wasn't well received. The one thing I thought went without saying was that at the very least my fellows would be well mannered, considerate, and polite after all these were in the main of the ...

All Aboard. We were up early this morning and got to the train station in plenty of time, so we had breakfast at Burger King of all places. We opted for the British version of the sausage and egg sandwich. In a word, 'Interesting'. It was made with something they call Chumsford sausage. Instead of a patty of meat, it was a rather thin, foot-long link, that they coiled up on the bun. On top was the egg, but not the scrambled, generic egg substitute we're used to in the ...

The Queen Mary 2 is a surprising work of art that still performs its basic function: to carry people across the ocean in comfort and ease. This picture shows the stack while we're underway. Notably, there is no black smoke emanating from the stack. That's because this ship uses diesel engines, not marine boilers that burn bunker fuel oil, as its primary energy source: diesel fuel burns a lot cleaner than bunker fuel. The diesel ...

Cold and wet England. After having traveled in hot and humid climates, the weather in England was a welcome change ... but I did need to buy a micofleece at a cancer charity thrift shop in Southampton. To back up a bit... We arrived at Heathrow airport near London on Aug. 15 and took a long-distance taxi (cheaper than a London cab, by far) to Southampton on the south coast, where our daughter, Kirsten, was completing work on a master's degree ...