Some more R&R was the name of the game when we set out for a long weekend in Rural France. Scott and I headed to Standsted early Saturday morning for our first Ryan Air flight in a number of years. It is the only airline that touchs down where we were heading. Which was I'Abbaye du Palais hotel near the small town of Bourganeuf. We landed at Limoges airport and were zooming into the country side and a lovely sunny day within moments. It was green, green, green with lots of wooded areas - very pretty. Before arriving at the hotel we visited St Lenoards. It had a old church (listed) and the streets were lined with sweet old houses. We tried to order lunch but our complete lack of French meant we were unable to ... read more

The UK’s Channel Island of Jersey was our spring weekend destination. Scott, Myles, Adam and I set out extremely early for Gatwick, 5.30am to be exact, yawn. We were soon on our way for the short flight south and landed to a crisp, sunny morning. After picking up the smallest car on the Island, 3 door Fiat, and all squeezing in we were off and soon at the main city; St Helier on the South Coast. Every town is ‘St’ something, and apparently each parish issues different drivers licences – so many odd things still going on in this part of the world. We all couldn’t check in to our hotel so decided to go for a burn across the Island to the North Coast. It only took about 15-20mins. The country side was very pretty ... read more

Like many other Brits, Scott and I took advantage of 11 days holiday for the price of 3 days annual leave. On Easter Friday we jetted out from Heathrow to Abu Dhabi, landing early evening and then whizzing straight to the coast. The city was much bigger than we had thought, grid like and very busy being a Friday evening. There were huge road works and building sites on each block. That evening we ate under the stars at the hotel seafood restaurant and watched a parade of concrete trucks head over to a nearby Island. Really Abu Dhabi is a collection of Islands some natural and some man-made. The next morning we saw from the hotel the extent of the road-works; it felt like the part of the city we were in was one large ... read more

Spring had sprung early the week before heading to Paris for the Marathon, so it was a lovely evening when we set out on the Euro Star. Alison and John had arrived from NZ the day before and Alison was also running the Marathon. It was a hot, hot weekend. It started by going to the Marathon Expo and dealing with very long un-marshalled lines trying to pick up our numbers. But we managed to get out of there just after noon and headed for the 19m mark of the course to agree the spot of our support crew would be; Scott and John. After the standard pasta meal we went to see the finish line and agree a meeting point for the finish. Our hotel was super close to the finish so we strolled back ... read more

The flight up from Patagonia was rather longer than expected and was particularly turbulent given the winds which add an extra level of tension to the day. The connection in BA was rescheduled 90mins later, then it was delayed 30mins and the flight out of Patagonia was 1hr delayed. It was bliss arriving in Mendoza (aside from having the fruit we had bought in El Calafete confiscated - weird not to be able to take fruit from one part of a country to another we thought). We had a driver waiting and it was around 28 degrees at 8pm. We were soon racing along the motorway heading for our lovely Christmas Day hotel in Maipu called El Aguamiel. It was nestled in a small vineyard, all architecturally designed and had a quaint little lap pool. This ... read more

The evening of Tuesday 14th Dec we battled London rush hour on the tube out to Heathrow. That was all forgotten once we were in the lounge sipping on bubbles waiting for our flight to Buenos Aries; the start of our 3 week holiday in Argentina. We touched down in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where we had to stay on the air craft while they restocked and cleaned it. This was a little odd, and after 12hrs it would have been nice to get off the plane. It was a little chaotic arriving in BA people everywhere and multiple unorganised queues for passport checks and customs. Like NZ and OZ they scan bags for meat and fruit products. It was then a cross town dash to the domestic airport on the other side of the city. The ... read more

Just after 9am Scott, Adam, Myles and I were heading south towards Chichester in West Sussex for a weekend of walking in the country side. We got a taxi to our Farm B&B at Chilgrove and from there headed out on our first loop walk. We followed Monarch’s Way over rolling hills, past a pen full of Turkey’s and through a wooden forest before reaching our lunch spot. A warm pub called Hare & Hound. The light was fading as we made it back to the B&B with no wrong turns, go the OS Explorer Map. The colours were amazing and the ground carpeted with red leaves, very pretty. The under floor titles and hot wet room was divine to thaw out before heading out for dinner at The Fish House. The restaurant seemed rather modern ... read more

It was an early start, up and out the door by 7.30am to get down to Kent for a harvest tour at Biddenden Vineyard. We headed away for the weekend with our friends Kate & Mal to sample some of England’s finest in Kent, one of the country’s best wine producing regions. The drive down was fast, no one on the road that early in the morning. It wasn’t long before we were in the country side and once off the motorway we spied the vines. We checked in at our hotel The George, lovely old coach house from the 13th century. Our taxi driver (David) was waiting outside to take us around four vineyards. We arrived just in time of the tour and joined about 15 odd people to walk around the 22 acre property. ... read more

It was an early start Friday morning, up and on the tube to Heathrow by 6.30am. We arrived in plenty of time to pick me up some new shades and enjoy a glass of champagne in the lounge, before boarding the near empty flight to New Delhi. We managed to get the exit row seats so plenty of leg room for the 8.5hr journey. The new airport in Delhi was very spacious; sadly it looked like the carpets were from the late 70’s, brown with a wide pattern. How they found a company manufacturing carpet like that is a mystery. After walking about 1km we arrived at customs. I was a little nervous as realised I had a business visa and had ticked ‘holiday/leisure’ visit. But all was well and we were both waved through and ... read more

This past weekend Adam, Myles, Scott and I spent the weekend Glamping in North Wales. This is a posh style of camping! We headed out of London just after 6pm after a bit of a hiccup at the local car hire place. Our reservation had not been confirmed, so when we arrived to pick up our card there was no reservation. They did have one car available we could hire, just £50 more for the weekend that we had reserved, plus we had to run home and get a utility bill and bank statement. After negotiating our way out of London via Victoria, Edgware and Brent Cross we were whizzing along the M1. To our surprise we didn’t hit much traffic at all; however we made a fatal error as we approach Birmingham. There was a ... read more