Good morning folks, hope you're all well Wednesday last week brought about one of my least favourite activities - clothes buying - which comes a close second to shoe buying. I needed a business suit in order to at least look the part. We spent quite some time trying on suits, and thankfully we found one. The attitude to assisting customers is totally different here - they actually come and help you and bring you stuff into the changing room. Once they've got an ...

Good evening and welcome to Swannanoa, in deepest flattest Canterbury. It is amazing to think that only just over a week has gone since we left the UK; we seem to have busied ourselves quite quickly after a slow and chilly start. All our flights were good, although the 2 hour stopover in Singapore was not enough and it took us several days to really feel human again. In fact our walks out around the countryside the first few days here were feeble and we turned ba...

HiThis is our last blog before we head off tomorrow. Just over 24 hours to go and we've just packed, thankfully we are in our weight limit and this includes a suitcase we are taking back for Sara (which seems to mostly contain chocolate and teabags). The selection process for the travelling companions has taken place. and we are pleased to announce that Colin the canary, Patrick the lion and Iwan the bear have all made it back into the bags to be joined by 2 ...

Hello. Just returned to Norwich from an amazing 5 days in France at Jonny and Patricia's wedding. Seven of us went over together and a total of 70 Brits made the journey, we also met up with some of our German friends from the table tennis exchange and people we hadn't seen for about 15 years so it was a fab time. We stayed in the town of Figeac which is a couple of hours from Toulouse and Limoges - they do the best chocolate mousse ever in a brasserie ov...

Hi - Happy Easter! We thought that we would write a bit about the visa stuff as we have been asked lots about what we're doing and what visa we're applying for etc. so perfect opportunity to use the blog and put it in writing.Firstly, we are going out as tourists on a 6 month tourist visa. We will probably stay up to 4 months because if it's not working out then we won't stay and flog dead horses we'll come back and come up with plan...