Happy New Year 2011. It is January 1st, exactly 18 months since I landed in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. And what a year and a half it has been.

As I promised myself this was to be the last travel blog entry as I intended it to finish when Pippa and I were reunited in our new home in England. Therefore this is the last blog entry I shall make. I shall spend the next few days editing spelling and grammar of which some disastrously poor examples plague many of the entries. I will not however delete entries or remove any of the lesser interesting blogs, as this is part of the adventure.

So here I sit on the end of the dining room table in our London flat. Pippa is busying herself with a jigsaw puzzle she got for Christmas. Anouk is curled up in Baxter's (flat mate's dog) bed while Baxter is guarding his bone on a mat by the heater.

Loic, our flat mate is somewhere between Paris, New York and Florida celebrating New Year. So it is a quiet moment to reflect on the past 18 months.

As the proverb, "the best laid plans etc" shows Pippa and I have had a roller coaster of a time. We never planned to be apart for more than 6 months. But the promises made by the nursing agency I used to go to Saudi were not worth the paper they were printed on.

Overall Saudi was not a complete waste. I was able to save enough money to ship all our belongings, plus Anouk and of course Pippa to England which was the basic plan. Also the plan was to save enough set up money and have a few catch up weekends in Europe. The second part of the idea never came about. However while in Saudi I met some wonderful people like Trudy, John, Adele and Kellie. Also I had some fun times with illegal drinking venues, sipping water behind the ATM during Ramadan, shopping trips to Bahrain, Dubai and best of all a wedding anniversary in Abu Dhabi with Pippa.

But as all you regular readers would know Saudi did not live up to expectations and leaving the contract early without permission and bodgying my departure through Bahrain was the best thing I did in 2010. However it did lead to a quicker than expected stay in England, and an even less expected bounce back to Australia.

It was lovely to catch up with family and friends in Australia, but as a travel experience it was a long delay to mine and Pippa's life. 9 months to get a visa to the UK so Pippa and I could live together. But I did get the visa and flew back through snow and airport closures and delays.

I spent Christmas with Pippa in London and New Year as well. I could not have asked for a better end to 2010 and this travel blog.

So to all the people who have followed this blog, thank you for the messages, emails and comments. All shall be published in a hard cover book through the site. I am not sure what happens to the blog after it ceases to be added to. But take your time to read over the next few days while I am reading and correcting.

Keep in touch, come and visit, book early for the Olympics 2012, stay happy and safe where ever you all are.

Good bye for now

Rod XXOO