Our last week in England was a bit hectic to say the least. We tried to fit in visits to as many people as possible, so apologies to those we ended up missing out. Maybe next time! We returned to Chislehurst, Kent, to stay with Trish’s sister, Sue, for a few days. Whilst there we visited Knole Park in Sevenoaks. The sun shone all day for us and even the deer came out to see us. It was like a scene from a non-cartoon Bambi at times! We had our picnic lunch looking out over the golf course. Nice of them to provide benches by the tees!!! It was also too good an opportunity to miss to go into London. For Trish it’s not a great day out having lived there for years, but for Russ ... read more

We had a tough 6 hour drive down to Devon in terrible weather. It was our first real experience of traffic jams on British motorways since we got back. Very unpleasant!! Our week in the village of Thorverton, near Exeter, Devon, was both relaxing and hectic. With new nephew William to welcome into the family plus Jack (4), Bryony (5) and Kaitlyn (7) to keep us occupied, we were pleased to be house-sitting for a friend of the family. The peace and quiet saved our sanity!!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t get me wrong, it was great to see them but it made us realise what a good decision it was not have kids of our own!!!!! The weather wasn’t great a lot of the time but we still managed to get out and about. We had a wonderful afternoon ... read more

Returning to England, the last thing we expected was a prolonged period of good weather. Not that we are complaining of course! We stayed with Trish’s parents in Frinton-on-Sea on the Essex coast where we hardly saw a cloud in the sky! It’s always nice to walk along the seafront when the sun is shining. There were some very brave people about, stripped down to the bare minimum and sunbathing on the beach or, even braver, swimming in the sea! Needless to say we didn’t join them! We also took a stroll along the promenade at Harwich. Once again the weather was perfect and people were braving the beach. The view over to Felixstowe was interesting with the giant cranes standing proud over the shipyards. We even got to see a “Thames barge” on the water. ... read more

Hooray! The sun has been out for a whole week. We've been making the most of it with a couple of hours of bronzing every day. No swimming though. Look at the panoramic photo above and you'll see why. Great for surfers, lousy for us! The series of pictures was on a day when we thought the waves were huge, but for a few days they were much, MUCH bigger! We've been trying to wrap up the tourist trail here. We took a tram up to the Santa Teresa district. It was a bit disappointing up there as we expected something really touristy but you had to look hard to find the things you might want to see. The museum was tiny with a small but interesting collection of tram artefacts, memorabilia and old photos. We ... read more

So, we escaped the rain in the mountains and headed to Rio de Janeiro where it was also raining! What an anticlimax!! The first night we stayed in a hostel in Copacabana. It wasn't the best hostel in the world and the prices are astronomical. Luckily we found an apartment more or less straight away. Maria at It's All Brazil gave us a good discount as we are here for 3 weeks and we were able to move in straight away. The apartment is literally 2 minutes walk from Copacabana beach and is very comfortable. So now we are self-catering, maybe we can shift some of those pounds the wonderful breakfasts have been putting on us over the months!! When you think of Rio, you think of sun, sand, samba, football and the figure of Christ ... read more