Leaving the U.K.

  London, United Kingdom
Sunday, September 2, 2007

Ok, here goes, the day of departure is finally upon us!

We woke up at my parents' place in Bury St Edmunds, where we'd come to finish off our final preparations and say goodbye, before leaving for London to say goodbye to Katie's family.

It's been great to see my parents and Sam & Pete (my sister & fiance) one last time before we leave the country.

I'm very grateful for Sam & Pete for travelling all the way from Cheltenham to Suffolk to say goodbye to us, thanks a million Sam ;)

Pete kindly took this photo of the Feys before we jumped in the car!



We were also were able to visit Ste & Ali today, our good friends at whose wedding Katie & I got together six years ago!

They were staying up the road with Ste's Mum, so we enjoyed one last drive through the Suffolk countryside.

I nearly managed to dislocate my arm playing a version of 'cricket' with badminton rackets against Ste & his daughter Chloe, but apart from that we had a great time ;)

Katie & I made good time to London, making it for lunch where we met up with Katie's parents, her brother James and his wife Anna at their home in Barnes.

We had a very nice lunch around the corner before returning to their place to do one final check of our backpacks.

This is a quick photo of Katie's family taken outside the restaurant.



Before we left we just had time to cancel any unecessary direct debits & my mobile contract, as we should be able to make do with Katie's mobile for any emergencies.

After that we were ready for our lift to Heathrow, so on went the backpacks for our last photo in the UK!

I know that we might look a bit small in this photo, but a) James is 6ft 4" tall and b) he's standing on a step! ;)



Ok, I just wanted to get the first blog entry on the board and to thank all of you for your kind wishes.

Another big thank you to those of you reading this who were able to make our leaving drinks in Marylebone on Friday night.

We had a fantastic time, as you can see from the photos below!







We'll miss you all but we're aiming to get online every day while we're away, so make sure that you stay in touch!

Ok, with a bit of luck I'll pick this up again in Bangkok on 'Day 1' proper of our travels, so wish us luck for a safe first long haul journey...

Stay safe and be well.


Lots of love,


Al & Katie xx