I never expected to witness a naked man swimming in a lake teeming with dangerous snakes, crocodiles and hippos, but part of the fun of travel is witnessing sheer insanity I believe! And also seeing lots of wild animals and their babies. Today’s excitement began with a neighbour’s cat visiting us during breakfast. It even let me stroke it :-). Glyn pointed out that it’s fur wasn’t as soft as our boys’, but it does look like it is well fed. Now our lodge is a distance from the main area, and does have an electric fence to keep out elephants and predators, but I did wonder about the walk between the fenced places, what happens when we get big and wild visitors? However, there was a man at the gate with a torch ready to ... read more

Do I want to walk in the forest at night looking for snakes? And pay $40 for the experience? No. Absolutely not. But thanks for the offer guys! This was during our first night in Uganda, in a dark forest where our accommodation is at the end of a very long path, amongst the wildlife, making me nervous of every dark tree root and stem by torchlight on my way to bed. Even in my hiking boots, I did not want to step on a snake. After a 24 hour journey from home via Birmingham airport, Istanbul Airport and Kigali airport, we finally arrived at Entebbe, having had very little sleep - screaming children put a stop to that. It was warm and still dark and we soon found our guide, Didan, who Glyn had booked ... read more

Another frosty day in Berlin and we walked to Alexanderplatz to catch a train to Gesundbrunnen where we were to go on an Underground Tour of a communal air raid shelter. Our multicultural group had two guides: Eran who did the talking and Christina at the back to ensure no one wandered off. There were very few communal bomb shelters in Berlin during WW2, most people were encouraged to use their own basements. This particular shelter was created within existing tunnels around the underground station. I did find it a bit odd that there were spare rooms created when the station was built, but that was the best reasoning I got for their existence. There was only 8cms of concrete above us and the shelter wouldn’t have been all that protective had there been a direct ... read more

Arriving at BER we were stuck at the back of a massive queue with all the other Brits. I’d left a scarf on the plane and returning to retrieve it meant we were one of the last to join the queue too. Salt was rubbed into the Brexshit wounds when a member of staff shouted, “anyone with Resident passes or EU citizens?” as they could go to the fast automated EU line, but we were stuck with the rest of the world in the painfully slow, non automated dickhead queue. We gazed longingly at the empty auto passport scanners with the info screens rotating videos on how to use them, that meant you didn’t have to talk to officials. There were only three passport desks open as I guess they’re set up for EU citizens in ... read more

If you read my blog on Monday, you’ll know that my hubby and I got very ripped off by a taxi driver in Tbilisi. He charged us 150 laris (£47.95)for a journey that should have been no more than 15 laris (£4.79). I’ve been annoyed at myself for letting him get away with it. So when I saw him in Meidan Square this morning, chatting with another driver, I plucked up the courage to confront him and Glyn followed me close behind. I took taxi driver’s photo and one of his number plate before he realised who I was. Obviously he tried to fob me off, with more nonsense about being a tourist taxi driver and there being traffic (there’s always traffic in Tbilisi). Now I knew he was lying but recently had this confirmed on ... read more