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 an Oak Hall leader by having the genius idea of putting the windbreak on the first patch of 'damp' sand - it doesn't blow around as much. After a couple of pleasant hours pulling sand ... read more

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... Settle in easy enough, check out the immediate area... most people head for the beach before dinner, after which we have a quick meeting on the beach - Andy lets us know "where he comes ... read more

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, having already done the meeting on the bus. We soon had the tents up, but the guests were feeling pretty uncomfortable at this campsite - a lot of people staring, and the ablution blocks were ... read more

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 the tannoy, 3 of them had been moved but the last was not coming, so we tried on some other cars! 2 hours later, and plenty of rides in the campsite buggy, and we managed ... read more

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 faintest sniff of a policeman, several of us decided to walk through the streets, finding Ponte Vecchio, and over to the gardens at the Palace. No going in there though, not unless you were prepared ... read more