When Ray and I first talked about going travelling, he told me that once I'd experienced the magic and beauty of this world that it would get right under my skin and the wanderlust for adventure would never leave me. He was right. I returned home in 2013 with my eyes open and horizons well and truly broadened. I wouldn't shut up about my adventures and the things I'd seen. Eventually I regaled anyone and anything that had eyes and ears with my travel tales of jungles, mountains and temples, crazy characters, deadly spiders, impromptu parties, clowns on buses, moped accidents, Inca Trails, barrier reef snorkelling, tuk tuks, vids, photos, memories blah, blah blah. There I go again! My kids, my friends and family all endured my reminiscing and rantings and even my students were set an IT project using my travel blog. If I mention it now the response is usually " wow really! did you going travelling, we didn't know?" with just the tiniest hint of sarcasm!

Since our last big adventure life has changed, like everyone we have had good times and not so good. We bought our first home together close to the New Forest, we lost my precious dad, new babies were born, Ray and I turned 50, I became a grandparent, Joe returned home from Iceland, new teaching jobs came and went as did three redundancies and sadly in 2017 Ray lost his own dad. Last year was also exceptionally sad. We lost my beloved Auntie Carol very suddenly and after a short battle with cancer my kids too lost their own dad, known to all as Bear. It's all well and good trying to deal with your own grief when someone you love passes away but when you see your children , whatever age they may be, struggling under the weight of it all, it is overwhelmingly torturous and you feel so helpless, I couldn't make this better for them, it broke my heart.

Louise had always had a yearning to travel and after everything that happened last year she decided to get away and distract herself from the sadness, the routine, and the endless 9 to 5 and more that was sapping her soul. One night when we were trying to work through the events surrounding her dads passing, she made the suggestion that we should go travelling together, spend some time being close, laughing at silliness, trying new things, throwing ourselves at life and being free from the grief that was encompassing us and the negative people in the workplace that had sapped too much of our precious time and just get away from the mundane and stressy world that both our lives had become. After this wine fuelled master plan and with the blessing of my wonderful Ray, the whole idea snowballed. Fast forward to present day and Louise and I find ourselves a week away from our adventure, vaccinated, checked in with Thai airways, Deet and sun factor 97 packed, car SORNed, the obiligatory blog started and my chickens installed in their new temporary home ' Cluckingham Palace' courtesy of my amazing mate Kim Benford!

This time, Louise and I will be travelling around South East Asia, we are going to avoid the places I experienced with Ray and make this trip uniquely different. So currently we have a one-way flight to Thailand where we fly straight into the monsoon season and head North then we will see what happens. I plan to come back after the New Year, but Louise feels she may continue to live out of her backpack a bit longer so my advice to her as before is, life is short so put another pin in the map my darling and go to wherever life takes you!

Wish us luck! Lots of love xxx