Blogs from Southampton, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe

We flew out of Brisbane on Thursday 5thApril, with the first stop being Singapore. We were only off the plane long enough to go out of the arrivals gate, down the hall and back through security (where Deb had the pleasure of a pat-down – clearly she looked like a terrorist) to get back on the plane bound for Abu Dhabi. Touched down in Abu Dhabi, and had enough time for a coffee, a rest, and a chat to some fellow travellers before boarding for London. The brief stop in Abu Dhabi was interesting – the terminal is unbelievable, and the sheiks with their bodyguards and the groups of Polici trotting around with their semi-automatics reminded us that we were far from home LOL We behaved ourselves in Abu Dhabi :) The last leg to London ... read more

Ok, so I'm pretty sure that by now I should be excited to the point where I had become unbearable to those around me, constantly harping on about where I'm going, people I'll encounter, experiences I'll have, inexplicably amazingly wonderful adventures I'll be undertaking? So then, why is it that all I have is this overwhelming feeling of impending doom? Flying!! I hate flying!! What the hell am I doing? I keep repeating it to myself. What the hell am I doing embarking on an adventure that without the 'flying' bit would just be a lame drive up to heathrow and back home again? It's a necessity. Unfortunately. To make all of the good stuff real, the 'flying' bit inevitably has to happen. But the anxiety was almost so overwhelming last weekend that I almost panicked ... read more

Something occurred to me recently. I was driving through the New Forest to go to work at the Pottery and thinking about my travels and all the wonderful places that I hope to see and feel and experience. What occurred to me was this; all of those beautiful places must be home to someone? And I wondered to myself if they look upon those places with sheer wonderment as I know I will. Do they form a part of the ranks of people who every day discover something new and incredible in these landscapes? These ranks made up of countless travellers before me and countless more to come. Visitors in these lands so new and interesting that we must attempt to capture its very essence in a million photographs or a series of intensely descriptive journal ... read more

At 7am on Thursday 10th November 2011 I will wake up, if indeed I have even slept, I will double check my packing list…I say ‘double check’ but chances are that by this point the ‘double check’ will be the distant and long forgotten ancestor of the ‘septuple’ or even ‘octuple check’…I will say a teary goodbye to my wonderful man, who has made this whole thing possible and I will embark on an adventure. One of the biggest I’ve had to date but hopefully not the last. There is so much world to see, after all. It’s going to be a whistle stop tour of North America, New Zealand and India. There was so much more I wanted to cram in but in three months I was asking a lot. So, given that I won’t ... read more

Ok, so I think I may have become a little obsessed with the planning of my RTW trip and have gotten to the point where I now have a ten page excel spreadsheet outlining where I am going to be on every day that I am travelling (except of course the 29th November 2011 which never exists for me...the mind boggles??). It details names, addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses of everywhere that I'm staying en route, which of course being anally retentive in this area, I have booked well in advance. It includes daily activities, times, prices, whether it's booked or not booked and even daily budgets for food (which, no doubt, have no real relation to what will actually be spent). The crazy thing is, is that I am the least well organised, anally ... read more

Just a quick one today to explain that the last few days have been pretty routine with only one thing worth talking about, as we have sailed from Gibraltar back to the UK. Gibraltar was really warm, and half shut as we were there on a sunday. Even the monkees that live on the rock dont work sundays aparently. We traversed the bay of biscay afew nights back during the biggest winds Iv seen since Iv come on board. Iv been told it wasnt reeeeealy bad, but we did have to be extra careful during the shows and setups as you never knew if you were about to be thrown forwards, pinned to the floor or toppled sideways. Anyways, the thing I wanted to mention happened during last nights show of Celtic Heartbeat. Due to the ... read more

After setting out from Tallinn on our way back we had a couple of sea days to contend with. The weather was good to us again, and we got to see some more of the amazing scenery that the Baltic has to offer. Unfortunatly this did lead to something funny on board. During that start of a guest entertainers act our entertainment director was onstage infront of 800 people warming them up when the relay from the bridge cut in (when the bridge broadcast, every speaker on the ship broadcasts it) with an announcement telling us that we were about to go under the longest bridge in the world and there would be a commentary on deck. This pissed off both the ents director as she was interupted, which shouldnt happen, and the entertainer as loads ... read more

Test Blog #1 This is our first blog so i know what i'm doing! As you can see this is a map of our first flight from the UK to Delhi, 9 hours of panicking that we have forgotten something... practice makes perfect!... read more

Hopefully this is working and you guys can see a couple of updates as I am not sure what I am doing! Anyway, bag packing and setting off for HK on Tuesday at 1230 from Heathrow ... read more