Hello everyone and welcome, thank you for taking the time to visit my blog.

Carol and I were asked by so many people to email them with news of our progress that I decided (in my naivety) that instead of creating a mailing list and risk offending anyone who could have been inadvertently missed off it, I would write a blog, simples, after all, how difficult could it be? Loads of people do it, don’t they ???

Wrong!  To say it has been a steep learning curve is an understatement, I am still floundering and that is with the expert guidance and tuition from Paul, who, it has to be said, credits me with far more understanding of the world of software than I actually have.

We (Carol) wanted a special holiday this year to celebrate the following: 65^th birthday (mine), 40 years of purga .. marriage, both of us retiring and therefore life on a pension kicking in.

I had a big decision to make re the lump sum! Save it to pay for the care home in our dotage thereby saving the government a packet, or blowing the lot on a big holiday. It took me a long time to deliberate, almost as long as the kettle took to boil. So holiday it was, sorry HM government, some you win some you lose. The next question was where to? Well, nothing winds Carol up as much as my reaction to her comments about far away places with “Been there, it smells” or “Been there, you wouldn’t like it” So what better than a tour around some of my old haunts to justify these responses.

So Carol, plied with a glass of Merlot and regaled with stories about endless sun, tropical islands east of Java, flying fish in the Strait of Malacca and pirates in the south china sea (no, I made the last one up) was duly steamrollered into going for the big one “Autour du Monde” Easy I said – you just pay for your ticket and away you go, no cancelled flights, no long waits at airports and no luggage restrictions. Well it was easy when I was in the Navy – you just got a chitty in your mail box saying “you are going, next Monday, be outside with your kit at 09:00.” It was a good job we had paid our deposit before we found out about things like visas, (twenty at the last count) cost of holiday insurance (would pay for a holiday on its own), home insurance when you are away for longer than 6 weeks (kids and extended family move in house sitting, bargain for them in winter), what do we do about the car (son will drive it, just to keep it in good running order you understand!), how do we get to (and back from) Southampton with four months luggage, (friend from the pub – “Mates Rates”) What will four months post look like when we return (daughter’s secretarial skills come in handy sometimes and  the freebie papers can be ditched). etc etc etc….

Anyway, here we are, about to set foot on a once in a lifetime voyage around the world inviting you to join us via this blog. I have tried to keep the format as simple as possible, to a) keep within the limits of my abilities as far as possible and b) because many of you want to be able to just have a quick look to see where we are and what the latest is. So with a nod to those who want to explore and know a bit more, I have included some links to additional information and will probably include some more along the way, but the main page is ‘Blog’ for the latest news or ‘here’ to see our current position and to look at the view through the bridge webcam.