Blogs from Woking, Surrey, England, United Kingdom, Europe

Hello & welcome to my travel blog. I am now all packed, unless I decide to make any last minute changes. I must admit that a sleeping bag & hiking boots do take up more room than I had anticipated. The weather here is lovely & sunny but I think I will be needing my waterproof when I land in New York this evening. I am quite happy that the thunderstorms that the weatherman was predicting for New York, seem to have been downgraded to heavy rain. Fingers crossed for a pleasant weekend.... read more

Yipee!! Snow time! Everything has come to a halt - no work - no buses - no Christmas ball :( All i need is the trains to be working for when i go home for Christmas. ... read more

It's true you can take the boy out of Africa, but you can't take the Africa of the boy. It's calling, one day I hope to answer it and return to explore and feel it again. Once I feel strong and prepared well enough in mind and body to handle exploring and enjoying where I wish to go. Mainly Namibia from all I've heard is appears to be such an extraordinary unqiue place on earth. If you can watch wildest Africa series, The sands of time an excellent doco on the country of Namibia please do I just did. I understand more why I'm so drawn to exploring and experiencing some of it. I remember watching the film Dune (film ...envoronmemt and some cutlural aspects inspired from Namibia) were a at age five fresh from moving ... read more

Hi everyone, Well it's only 4 days to go before I set off on my trip to India. The packing hasn't officially stated yet... but the pile of stuff that will need to go in my suit case is getting larger by the hour! After the horror story from Kate I have invested in a first aid kit that has enough hyperdermic needles and syringes to keep Holby City going for a month!! Really looking forward to my trip but am a little concerned today as I have been diagnosed with Laryngitis... going to be a bit difficult to teach English if I can't speak.... Kyp's happy for the peace and quiet for a few days though!! Anyway.... may not write again until I'm there. Bye for now Nina... read more

So here we are, in The Hockering, Woking. A humble, quaint, peaceful little environment situated just South of London. 20 days till we arrive in Bangkok, todays headline is not particularly inviting us to Thailand (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8693122.stm) 40 deaths so far, and we aren't so keen to join them. Tomorrow with fresh spirits we plan to go to Kingston STA in order to sort out our extremely important insurance, but we are slightly disapointed in the Blue Standard insurance which does not cover hostage insurance... we may need to upgrade to Premier which would bag us £3000 if this occurs! Still a bit unprepared, Will is still needing to pick up his Malaria tablets, and Tom still needs to pull his finger out and order his! Anyway we plan on using this blog to keep you all ... read more

Well we made it to Felicia and Chris's place out in Woking, its at lot like home but everything is just a bit wonky. The sinks have two faucets one for hot and one for cold. You know, because just having one stream of water was way to easy. They are really nice for taking us in though, and bought us some Chinese takeaway for dinner (Crispy Duck!). Fun thing is that they have three chickens out back. Meaning we got to have fresh eggs in the morning. Although they were a bit crazy when we let them out. Maybe from all their Duck friends we ate. They jump at you, and kept chasing us. And no matter what Bethany says I was not scared and protected her, because a grown man being startled by vicious ... read more

Here I am at home with 12 days to go until I leave for Peu - I'm excited and a little bit scared! I had my vaccinations back in September, Hepatitis A, Typhoid and Tetanus, with my choice as to whether to have rabies and a course of anti-malarials. I had 2 injections, a combined Hepatitis A and Typhoid jab and a Diptheria/Tetatnus/Polio jab. As for rabies and anti-malarials, I decided not to bother. The rabies jabs cost £45 a shot and you need three of them, and I'm not going to any high-risk areas for Malaria anyway. The same goes for Yellow Fever as I'm not going to the Jungle. More info from the NHS. I've also had my feet looked at and new orthotic insoles made and adjusted to fit comfortably inside the Sa ... read more

One very last minute blog entry to get this started! If we don't do this now it will never happen! We're leaving tonight to head to Mumbai from London. Two weeks here have been fab. Tom's walking tour of London included Piccadilly Circus, the houses of Paliament, Big Ben, an awesome little sushi bar and a couple of camping shops for last minute purchases. We've scoffed three tubs of Ben and Jerry's Half Baked, watched a couple of new episodes of F Word (I'm sorry but where is Jean Baptiste??!) and I've really got into Come Dine with Me. Caramac and Galaxy are out standing and Waitrose is revolutionary. The weather here has been lovely, the British summer really aint that bad. We went fishing and took Judy for lots of walks. I know this entry ... read more

Arrrrrr! Woke up at 5am. Feeling nervous and excited. Bag packed (thanks Claire) Had a cup of tea in bed with mum. Off to beauticians for final prep! Leaving for Heathrow to fly to Thailand this afternoon. Look out world here I come!!!... read more

Thank you, everyone, for all your good wishes, cards and congrats! It’s been great getting all your messages and I will be in touch properly soon to thank you all personally ... in the meantime, the blogger in me can’t resist putting pen to paper ... (you’re probably wondering how I found time! So far - and I don’t want to tempt fate here - Mathias has been an amazingly good baby!) Well, it seems I should have packed my hospital bag earlier after all. At a routine appointment, the doctor ominously disappeared from the room. When the door re-opened, she delivered the words, ‘I’m going to throw you a curveball.’ She wanted the baby to be born in the morning while I was still free of preeclampsia - with or without my husband present. Now, ... read more