hellooooo! im so sori 4 not gettin in touch sooner, my life is crazy as always! looks like u guys hav been enjoying yourselves, sounds like lots of fun! thank u so much 4 my postcard k8, i loved hearing from u! ive missed u lots! hope u got my text wishing u happy birthday, did u do anything special? college has been stressful with all the deadlines approaching but i finish on weds wooo! ooh k8, ul be glad u wont be swimming at amida now cos the other night at work someone done a poo and i had 2 clean it up! was the most disgusting thing ever! anyways hope ur both still having fun and il speak 2 u soon

lots and lots of love gibbsy x x x

Hi girls! To bad we couldn´t meet up in Bangalore. We were quite lost actually :) Jennie and I managed to lose the others and spent our saturday eavning in a rickshaw trying to find the bar where we were supposed to meet the others. Not to fun. I hope you are doing better and I am really jealous about your adventure. I have to go back to work on monday and that sucks. Take care now. XXX

Hello Kate and Laura- good to hear you are safely in Melbourne - I think we are all glad you didn't get searched for drugs at customs in Bagkok / that nothing untoward happened. Photos are great- look forward to ones in Oz with you in your charity shop clothes. Have a great time and keep safe, and please pass on our thanks to Andrew for his very kind hospitality. Love to you both xx

Hi girls,

good to see that zou have lots of fun and made it to Australia.

Grenville is still alive, today Andrew Mark and I are playing for the ISC.

Thank you so much for the postcard, we want more of that :) It's finally the last 5 weeks at Rossall, and we're all glad when it's over.

I hope you'll have a great trip!

All the best,

Jan

Thanks Aunty Bel for the message, hope Uncle Dave's is getting better and his finger is healing ok.

If Aunty Ol has a secret Indian sister we don't know about Sister Boniface could quite possibly be her.

Really nice hearing from you and hope you've calmed down a bit, feel slightly sorry for the policeman as I'm sure being confronted by a hysterical women can be quite an experience.

Hope everyone is ok.

All my love

Lauraxxx

Can I just say I am outraged that that picture of my hairy legs has been on our homepage for a few days so I am now going to do something about it! I didn't know Laura had put it on here.

Also I am quite baffled that it has been viewed 52 times - why????

Hello from Melbourne Australia! And thankfully we managed to get in and out of Bangkok without being searched at customs for drugs, which we were really worried about. Not because we are drug dealers but because we were worried somebody would plant something on us!

It is nice and cold here and we have bought some leg warmers and hobo gloves so look like the tramps of Laura's uncle Andrew's restaurant. Still need to buy lots of other warm clothing but waiting till we find some charityshops so that we'll look even more like hobos.

Yeah my (Kate's) stomach is a lot happier for eating good Western food at Andrew's restaurant. The food is superb and we've only been eating there for free - he won't let us pay.

We're also living in his house in St Kilda's, he kicked out the girls who were renting it for a week so we could stay there. Feel rather guilty that we've caused 2 girls to be homeless for a week. I (Kate) feel especially guilty as I only met the guy yesterday.

He's been too kind to us and has even given us 50 dollars each to get us started and won't let us give it back to him. He has also offered the use of his car for us, if we want to do any travelling down the coast etc.

We don't have much else to report as have just got here and spent most of our time sleeping and eating so bye for now

xxxxxxxxxxx

Love the Bangkok photos. So pleased you decided not to hire a scooter Laura -- a sensible decision given you've got another 3 months of holidaying planned! Kate I know after I hade a very nasty bout of food poisoning I found that if I eat anything that was slightly dodgy I was ill - everyone else was fine but not me. I hate to say but it lasted for quite sometime so you're going to need to be careful. Lot of love xx

Hi Kate & Laura

Hope you are enjoying Bangkok and that you have managed to see at least some of the sights as well as allowing for Kate to catch up with her beauty sleep.

Been having a quite weekend here. Just one week and a bit to go before our hols so looking forward to that. Going down to Appledore on Wednesday to take mum to Probate Court at Maidstone so will hopefully have all that sorted before we go away.

Keep taking care won't you

Love Dad xxx

Its now 1.15 am, and have just looked through all of your pics-fantastic, acant wait to hrear all of the stories that go with them, its now time for my beauty sleep, nighty nite, love aunty bel. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi Gals,

Been reading your blog, Could you ask Sister Boniface if her father had a bike with large wheels? she sounds like aunty olive's sister. The children will miss you terribly, you sound as if you have really brought some sunshine, love and thought into thier lives. You will be remebered there for a very long time- well done, am so veryl proud of you both. If I were you I'd keep he airconditioning on- it will be a good acclimatisition exercise for you before Aussie. When we wnet, I did'nt take any warm clothes with me assuming that ausie was the land of sunshine. Big mistake, winter there is like winter here, until you get up to the tropics in Q'land. I bought most of our winter clothes in the St. VIncent de Paul charity shops, they were fantastic, and not too expensive. Mum is here with us now, haveing just consumed a packet of choccie biscuits, bang goes her diet, but having worked like crazy all day I think she deserves a bit of spoiling. wonderful to hear all of your news, enjoy every moment of it. Mum said she was reminding you of your bank balance- I said she was very hard on you, theres always a sub here for you love- ok. Dave had a slight argument with the car jack and his left index finger last monday after leaving Solva, had a flat tyre, jack slipped- oh dear finger inbetween car and jack- painful and very bloody, aunty bel in major hysterics, along comes friendly police man, flagged him down, this poor man was faced with a mad woman and a man holding his left hand with copicious amounts of blood discharging itself all over the floor. I pleaded(literally) for him to take unce Dave to Withybush hospital ijn Haverford west, which he promptly did, whilke I awaited the arrival of our friendly AA man. He had the message that a serious accident had occured, with the wife very upset !!.

by the time he arrived Alice & wayne had arrived- was he pleased to find out that Dave was in Withybush and the mad woman had regained her composure. It was his last job before a 2 week holiday, and he thouhgt he was going to be there all night- poor guy. Any way ythe Withybush experience is awsome. Dave waited for 40 mins before being seen by the triage nurse- blood every where. she said he would have to see the Dr. next- 3 hours later he was seen and his wedding ring sawn off, only just managed to get the machine under this ring (this is the 3rd time its been sawn off- is he trying to tell me something?) then 31/2 hrs later wqe were delighted to be wa;king out of there with only a broken , and badly mashed finger. Am pleased to report that finger and patient are going well. dont know about the hystericla woman tho! Hope you don't ever have to do a stint down there. Well love its 11.30 pm and am jsu going to hand over to mum, Love you lots take care and enjoy. A.Bel.

Hello Kate and Laura

Thanks for the message Kate - yes I am taking full advantage of having very little use of right arm. Wrote birthday thank you notes with left hand today, it was funny - writing looks like I am about 100 years old. Am going to have a cortisone injection into the elbow on Fri 8 June - if it works I should be nearly back to normal in a few days after that. If not, back to the drawing board.

Alison is half way through AS exams, chemistry and biology next week. She feels so-so about art and psychology.

Helen finished over a week ago and feels dreadful. She is certain she has failed at least one paper and if that is so she will not be able to take year out of med school to do her BSC in Medical Ethics which she worked hard to get accepted for! Not allowed to do BSC if have to resit any exams. If needs to re-sit will be 12 Aug. If fails that the end of 2 years in med school - so as you can imagine, no stress!!!!!

Frank enjoyed Helsinki - had very hot weather, while we were all getting very wet and cold here.

Handed Nana over to Robert at cousin Richard and Sally's, had a lovely lunch in sunshine in Wales. I have missed seeing Nana every day sitting in the conservatory reading her book with her floppy pink sunhat on!

Hope you both continue to enjoy yourselves mostly!

Love

Jean