Today is a day of firsts: First blog, first journey with loaded panniers and first time we meet little baby Leila, our new niece.

Having never travelled with panniers before, we thought it would be a good idea to load them up and do a dress rehearsal by cycling to Portsmouth.

Andy is chickening out and not planning to take everything, but to be honest I'm more interested in winning the mudguard argument: he's refusing to put any on, which I think utterly selfish as I will spend 90% of the time behind him getting splashed with wet road grime! I might put them on secretly while he's not looking.