Well after several dinners, lunches and bottles of wine I am finally on my way. Bags packed - 15kg 5 more than I took around the world!! - helmet bought, malaria tablets selected and so much more that I just know something has been forgotten!! Thanks to everyone who has got me this far - mind you I am only in the bar of the Holiday Inn Heathrow!!

Bike training is fun - Thanks Mark, Darren, Ben, Sam and everyone else at the training school. I would love to claim that it was me and my bike in the photo but somehow I don't think I would be believed!! However I got up to 58 MPH on my 125 scooter today, (you feel as if you are going 158). Going through Maidstone was chaos but I suspect Cambodia may be worse - I will let you know.

This last year has been very different from the previous 35 years teaching: August 2015 - December 2015 - Travelling the world May 2016 - Walking Hadrian's Wall with my sisters (to keep fit) February 2016 onwards - looking into volunteering, I actually thought it would be easy and they would just say welcome - how wrong I was. VSO actually wanted to make sure I could do the job and was the right type of person! So here is the process so far: Apply ...