At 5.19 am I was wide awake. The iPod alarms weren’t due to go off until 6 am but I didn’t get back to sleep in that time.  When the alarms sounded I was up and ready to start the day and the final leg of our RTW adventure.  Hard to believe we had just completed 4 months of travel throughout Europe and previously 4 months of travel throughout Asia.  The boys were really...

Our last day in London … we had thoughts of going to Hampton Court but decided that it would make the day too traumatic and rushed so we gave up on that idea.  We had to get to the post office to mail some more books home and send the GPS to a friend who was going to be driving in Europe at Christmas time so that was the first chore.  The second chore was finding a new...

I woke to the sound of my phone ringing.  We missed the call but it was my twin sister calling to wish me a happy birthday (and vice versa).  I got up so I could get the computer to Skype her and managed to catch her inbetween juggling her job and kids.  Happy Birthday!  The boys gave me a card and Patrick informed me that Dad (Steve) forgot the chocolates!  I set out for a...

The day after arriving in London I had a date to catch up with a friend in Oxford.  Actually Sarah is my twin sister’s friend but that is the bonus of having a twin … extra friends.  I left the boys at the hostel and walked to the bus stop at 7.50 am.  I wanted to get an early start so I could really enjoy my day out in Oxford.  Sarah had given me great directions on how to...

The alarm went off at 6 am and by 6.30 am we had packed up; eaten breakfast and handed in our key to reception at the world’s noisiest youth hostel.  We weren’t sad to go since we’d had another sleepless night.  Our flight wasn’t boarding until 10.10 am but it is always nice to be early at the airport and we weren’t 100% sure of the process in getting there.  It turned out...

Steve spent 9 days completing his Day Skipper sailing course with the Hot Liquid Sailing Company, based in Gibraltar.  During this time the boys and I hung out in Marbella doing very little!  On Steve’s last day the boys and I got the bus to the main bus station in Marbella and then a bus to La Linea on the Spain/Gibraltar border so that we could all meet up.  Just in case...

I started the day with a walk down to the local Sainsbury’s in Croydon to buy milk for our cereal and a top up voucher for our internet dongle.  Back to the hotel for brekky and then I made use of the hotel gym.  When I returned to the room everyone had risen and we got ourselves organised for a busy day of travel.  Steve had attempted to call the car hire company to see if...

We woke to another glorious day and for the first time in maybe 2 months we could comfortably wear shorts and t-shirts.  That’s amazing considering just 5 days earlier in Edinburgh we were wishing for scarves and mittens.  I put our third load of washing into the dryer and then proceeded to try to wrestle all our gear into the new bag and into mailbags to send home. We came...

York to Colchester is a good 4 hour drive so we were keen to get on the road asap.  A friend in Australia (hi Jenny) had given us some vouchers to get a 15 pound discount at YHAs.  I was determined to use them but when I booked York over the phone I forgot to mention it.  After talking with the manager at York he was happy for us to redeem it in some other way so we were...

With another day in York ahead of us, we packed a picnic and set off along the river to walk into town.  The National Rail Museum was our destination with the largest collection of trains and memorabilia in the world; and it’s a free museum.  As we walked along the river we spotted geese heading south; rowers and canal boats.  At the museum we grabbed our map and set off in...