Wednesday 3rd September Yesterday was great, walking the beach. Saw more seals and lots of pelicans. For most of the day we had the whole beach to ourselves. However, the Pacific ain't the Med. Water was freezing so like true Brits we paddled! Seagulls helped to eat our picnic. Heading South again today towards LA which will probably take a few days at the leisurely pace we are travelling. [View Full Entry]

---

---

THE BIG SUR, MONTEREY COUNTY Sunday 31st August Today we drove down to Santa Cruz, had coffee at a little beach town called Capitola and then on to the Monterey Peninsula and Carmel. Capitola is real hometown America at its most charming. Tomorrow is Labour Day so lots of families were at the beach for the weekend. The old jetty was built in 1857 and like the town itself is unashamedly rustic, basic and simple. Along the riverside people were preparing floats of flowers for the celebrations the next day, whilst others played or watched a “horseshoe throwing” competition on [View Full Entry]

---

---

ON OUR WAY Saturday 30th August We’ve been in England for one week now and have been enjoying the cool weather and green countryside, after the heat of Spain in recent weeks. Today we braved Terminal 5 at Heathrow and “Yes” they still have problems there. We arrived in good time and were told that the only seats available to us were numbers 29F and 30E, in other words, sitting apart in different rows and also cramped between other people in the middle section for eleven hours. I don’t think so! Anyway, after a visit to Customer Services we finally got [View Full Entry]

---

---

PENSION GAP : FINAL PREPARATIONS 22 July 2008 1. Paperwork After recently reading in the press about James Pennington, a nineteen-year old from Wimbledon, who sustained severe injuries after a moped accident in Vietnam and then discovered that his insurance policy didn’t cover the costs of medical care and repatriation, one gets a little bit paranoid about travel insurance. This boy’s parents thought that they had done a good job of researching policies on offer to ensure that their son was well-covered for his Gap Year travels. He had the accident in M [View Full Entry]

---

---

1. DECISIONS- made in Spain April 2008 Why should a “Gap Year” be the prerogative of the young? The idea of a Gap Year is to have a break between the world of study and the world of work; in other words, between university and career. Well I never got the chance to do that. Therefore, a gap between the world of work and retirement seems thoroughly appropriate. With this in mind I’m starting to plan a trip around the world to gentle myself in to the strange concept of not having to get up on Monday mornings to start the [View Full Entry]

---

---