Saturday 2nd August to come Sunday 3rd August to come Monday 4th August to come Tuesday 5th August See [View Full Entry]

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Another week back at the Manor - this would usually be full of activities - earning my keep, etc. but there were THREE Drs on my Venice trip, who all said that I needed to fully rest and not talk for 2-3 days, otherwise I can't really expect to get better SO I have a week to sleep as much as possible and the challenge of a lifetime: DON'T TALK! Sunday head off to Bessels Green Baptist Church - really like it, think I'll go there again! Good sermon, thought provoking - but difficult going to a new church when can't [View Full Entry]

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Friday 1st August Well, what can you say... after a restful morning, we (Mary, Chris, Tim & I) do what all good Brits do, ignore the weather, and head for the beach. To be fair, it was a sunny day, but we didn't check out the wind levels! Mary had bought us lunch... so we headed for Camber Sands. Soon hired a wind-break, Tim took charge of putting it up whilst Chris just hid under his hoodie and Mary & I held up bits of the wind-break and tested the windiness of where we were. Proved why I've been hired as [View Full Entry]

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Saturday 19th July Hideously early start after only 2 hours sleep... Ruth drops me off at Otford train station and I make my way to Heathrow, where I meet up with Karen (yay!) - last time I saw Karen I was in the Barossa Valley in Australia - now she's back working in London. Tell BMI that I have too much luggage as I have all the tour leader stuff and they let me through anyway. We're sat all over the plane (some in the NICE seats) so don't get to meet people so much until we're on the transfer coach... [View Full Entry]

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Saturday 5th July Woke up 7am to the sound of rain falling on the tents, which rather spoils our plan of cleaning them out properly and ensuring that they are ready to be put into storage for another year! Instead, everyone gets up slowly whilst we form a new plan of action, which is personal possessions and chairs onto the coach by 8am, when we'll have breakfast, then take everything down before prayer. 9.30am tractor ordered to take stuff to coach - works kind of to plan, but we finish prayer off on the coach! We're off just before 10am, which [View Full Entry]

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Thursday 3rd July The earliest start we'd ever had, and probably the longest journey - best part of 700kms. Marzi carried out a quick photo shoot of the group (minus Glenn, of course) before guiding us into town, so that we could drop off David and Siew Ying before we headed onto the bulk of the trip. Stopped in Basel for a break, where 10 minutes turned into 40 minutes - this seemed a bit of a disaster, but somehow or other we ended up being ahead of time, stopping 1pm for lunch with 350ks to go! We arrived around 6pm, [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday 1st July Today is a complete blur as the antibiotics kicked in. Thankfully a travel day so spent most of the day dozing on the back seat of the bus. The guests headed into Locarno for 2 hours - said it was nice, but not unmissable - going up the Madonna del Stresa gave a nice view over the Lake! Headed over the Gotthard Pass which the guests now said was THE absolute highlight of the trip - beautiful views - could see them having a snowball fight from the safety of the coach - and one of those awesome [View Full Entry]

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Sunday 29th June An early start as we said goodbye to Glenn who was off to get his early train to the airport back to the UK. We were pretty much ready to go, and had warned the campsite that we would be leaving at 8.30am BUT when we looked into the carpark it was rammed with cars and there was going to be no chance that we were going to get out. Freddie reckoned we needed at least 10 cars moved, then decided he might be able to do it with 4 cars moved. With a couple of announcements over [View Full Entry]

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Saturday 28th June Met 8.30am for breakfast before the heat of the day! Many then headed down to the beach (about 20 minutes walk) before coming back for the 11.30 meeting/lunch. Today was Freddie's testimony (Belfast boy), before we had prayers and praise, topping it off with sitting around the books available from the bookshop for 15 minutes whilst people pointed out books that had been helpful to them. An experiment that seemed to work! 2.30pm we headed into Lucca - 30 minutes drive! 1 hour 15 minutes later we walking into Lucca... yes, the navigation didn't quite work today!! G [View Full Entry]

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Friday 27th June Florence, otherwise known as Firenze, is our excursion for today. It looks all set for another boiling hot day, and another extortionate parking fee (about 230 Euro for the day). Found the information centre, and found our way to the 'fake David', and to the Cathedral, before people split off into groups. Some went in the Cathedral (quite plain inside until you look up into the domed roof), others headed off to find the 'real David' in the museum, and the Medici collection in the Uffizi Museum. After watching the hawkers set-up & pack-up multiple times at the [View Full Entry]

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