Welbeck Hotel Nottingham

Wow - only one week to the day before we make our way down south to London town to stay in the very affordable 'heathrow' travel lodge.

Liz in in Manc saying goodbye to friends and family and i'm sorting the last bits out for the fresh box before we go.

Just wanted to say thank you to Ron and Sue for ...

... 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.

Finally worked out my route.

Fly to Armenia, travel through Georgia to Turkey and fly from Istanbul to Mumbai. Work my way across to Calcutta and fly to Bangkok. Through Thailand and Cambodia to Vietnam, then onto China.

I am setting off early September 2010 and aim to be in China early December, maybe.

And then I have to get back...

Tow truck 3, turns up at 20:30, we get loaded up and set off at 20:45 only to find out that the AA have sent me a driver that needs to take his 45 minute break in under an hour. So I waited an extra 1.5 hours for him to arrive and then I have to wait ...

... We take off into clear skies and head up the coast, looking down on the miles and miles of Atlantic beaches. As we near the north of Portugal it becomes misty, over Spain it is cloudy and by the time we reach southern Ireland it is dense cloud, as if a veil has been drawn over the time we have spent away. We treat ourselves to a small bottle of champagne to celebrate our final flight, accompanied by a bacon butty – oh I’m ...

... coffee & tea spilt over us, ours was all over the tray, the guy in front had his over his trousers,we settled down to a 6 hour sleep although the flight is 11 hours, Stuart & i went for a walk about midnight & started excising outside the loos,rest of the night went very smoothly Stuart saw the sun rise not sure how i missed it as it is me who sits next to the window,we arrived over the mountains there was not much to see as it was still dark ...

... And I went to HolmePierre Point white water course yesterday to get some last minute practise in and swam. This is most worrying. I have all sorts of excuses, like I was tired, I only had one leg in the boat, and the fact that I was pinned up against a wall for most of the time, but those excuses aren't going to be much use if it happens on a real river. Oh well, guess I've got Easter day off work to have another go. On the plus side...

... the same sort of clothes here in England except it is technically 'summer'. We do get the odd warm day at 25oC, but they are rare and I haven't really experienced a 'hot' day. During winter the only way I (Heidi) survived the freezing cold weather was wearing my long johns every day. (It was finally warm enough to stop wearing them around Easter time.) I just assumed that everyone wore long johns to get by. I have since found out that long johns are a ...

... we get the ferry from Vancouver to Pender Island http://www.penderisland.info/ to a small farm for two weeks. We have two weeks to explore Vancover Island before our final farm on Salt Spring Island at the end of November. We'll spend a couple of weeks in Vancouver itself before flying back for Christmas. But today, we have to defrost my fridge freezer, and put it in storage...

Well, the postman should have delivered the invitations today. I hope you find the fridge magnet and web site useful. If there are any questions please e mail me. Please be assured we will use this web site to keep in touch with you all and let you know what we are up doing and hopefully what an amazing time we are having. Not long to go now........... If we don't see you before we hope you can make it on the 13th August for 12pm.