Start spreading the news, we’re leaving today…well in a few days. Yes my friends the time has come for us to move on from jolly old Sydney and get ‘on the road again, I just can’t wait to get on the road again’. Alright enough with the song lyrics. Yes it’s time that I ceased being the sole viewer of the Hallmark channel and ingesting dangerous levels of Miss Marple and Poirot mysteries, and start talking to people without names like Major Bridgehorn and Lady Malfontaine. Actually life has been somewhat stressful for yours truly in the last few weeks. In some gross act of karma I’ve had to stray in to the wife’s forte….working. I am the Personal Assistant to the CEO of a corporate finance company and I can tell you it’s not all high heels and short skirts this PA business, although balancing in the former and looking graceful in the latter are proving somewhat tricky. Indeed, I am woefully under skilled for the job and have spent most of the time on the phone to people who know what to do, but never let it be said that I won’t try my hand at anything. It has been amazing that I haven’t been fired yet, but I suppose showing a bit if leg does have its benefits.

Right, enough of this flippancy. So it’s good bye Aussies, the most singularly casually racist breed of human beings in the world…my new favourite foot in mouth-ism from one of my playing buddies down at Manly Rugby Club ‘Is your wife like proper English?’. Australians have also managed to b******ise much of the English language, butchery of a standard that would make many a mass murderer stand up and applaud. My personal favourite? The abbreviation of the word ’presentation’ to the word….wait for it……’PRESO!’. Seriously, nothing more need be said.

Right enough with the pointing out the endearing qualities of Australians. The plans: Tomorrow it is off to Cairns for a bit of Barrier Reefing, followed by a flight to Singapore on Saturday. The general direction is north from then on, heading through Malaysia and Thailand before hanging a right into Cambodia. Vietnam beckons after that, followed by Laos, before a jaunt into northern Thailand via the Mekong, perhaps at a cookery school, before we begin the final trek into Bangkok for the last few days. All being good and political protest alive we will be returning to England on the morning of August 15 having completed one year of marriage and yours truly have broken into his 30s. Any suggestions and must-dos for this section of the World Tour are more than appreciated.

Until Asia my pretties