Sometimes life can be very stable and deliver what you expect. We have spent the last 10 days trying to catch up with as many friends as possible before we head off on an adventure into the pretty much unknown. And I now know for certain that:

• You can dress a netball team up in posh frocks, take them to the West End, but ultimately they will end up in a real ale bar, drinking bottles of prosecco, and doing shots of Sambuca because they aren't 'drunk enough';

• 4 hours is the maximum time 9 girls can do karaoke for before running out of songs when at least one of them sits down to have a strop about the quality of the tunes;

• Mashed potatoes AND roast potatoes is too much on one Christmas dinner plate. I don't think any single course of a meal should take over an hour to eat (as Daniel pointed out technically I am no longer a Boneham therefore I don't feel like putting those words on paper is quite the act of treason that I might have a year ago!)

• It is worth paying the extra £15 per night for a room in the Easy Hotel at Heathrow ( a big yellow storage company in a previous existence) to get a window, but you can manage without the extra £5 for the remote control;

• That we have the best friends in the world….and I will still miss my dog more that most of you. Oh come on, you didn't really expect me to end on such a gushing note!!

Yet, sometimes life takes very unexpected turns. For example, 12 hours before leaving the country for six months we didn't expect to be running round a Waitrose in Worcester Park looking for a Christmas pudding to take round Peru for the next 4 weeks…. we also didn't know

• That a truly fabulous local pub lets you take your shoes off and sit with socks in front of the fire, have a foot orgy, then brings you out free cheese platters at 9pm, and that really is the best place for the last gathering of the Maderian 6 + 1 for the foreseeable future. Years wasted in the Vanbrugh when the Pelton Arms was only metres away.

• That gone off prosecco tastes of cheesy feet;

• That as well as an 'Occupy Wall St' and 'Occupy St Pauls' there is an 'Occupy Cardiff' - albeit only 4 tents outside a Unison building. They aren't protesting against Unison, its just the only place that will let them use the toilets;

• That as a result of Emma Westbury's genius, you can fit six months worth of 'stuff' into a 60litre backpack that 'only' weighs 15.3kgs. (Most people checking in with us at Heathrow at 5am this morning haven't been shopping with Emma. One family of four had 23 cases, and another couple had 16 between them. Is the pound really that weak compared to the Peruvian Sole??)

• That Jon scored a massive coup in securing £150 for his season ticket for the rest of the 2011/12 season, as Chelsea languish 5th in the league, and could get knocked out of the Champions League any day now. I think he would struggle to get £100 now.

As I sit typing this on a flight across the Atlantic ocean (Iberia - they don't have seat back TVs you know. Really! I thought this was 2011. I don't like being in economy - especially as I am in the first row back and can just see through the curtain into the more charmed world), Jon and I don't know what the next 6 months will bring, but we know it is an opportunity of a lifetime and are hoping we will make the most of it. We are hoping it will be fun,not too scary, definately memorable, and are both looking forward to being outside and seeing what the world has to offer for the 6 months.

Jon, despite what his head is telling him, is hoping in his heart that there will be lots of bars that show Premiership football along the way. Personally, I am very much hoping that there will be minimal incidents of chickens on public transport. We are both hoping the dog doesn't forget us (of course, she won't forget me, I just put 'us' in there to make Jon feel better. Everyone who went to my hen do knows the dog loves me the most. And that I hate Chelsea).

Regardless, we will record and share it with you here, just to make you a little bit jealous, to make sure you don't forget all about us and keep in touch, and because then at least one night a week I will stay in and type while Jon does the washing. Just like in London, to make sure we don't get too homesick.