Home to Luton 2.15am alarm, snooze, 2.25am alarm, snooze. 2.30am s*** better get up. Usual pre holiday rushing about. Shave, shower, cases in the car, 1001 electric sockets turned off, bleach in the toilet. 3.05am. Leave home in car. 3.06am. Stop car at end of road as shaky wants to log into his satnav and can't remember his log in details. 3.10am. Still sat in car with an ever increasingly irate shaky. 3.11am. Set off in car with alternative sat nav. Trowel...

Well it's time for another adventure and this time the destination of choice is Iceland, the home of travel disrupting volcanos, Geysers, glowing sulphur lakes and the magical Aurora Borealis. Only 3 more days till we leave for our flight from Lutom to Keflavik and already had a small hiccup. It came to us while checking out the forecast for Iceland and looking at other peoples accounts of their trips. Yes, thats right, we had no appropriate clothing for a holid...

Paradise....... The title says it all really crystal clear emerald water, powder white sand and beautiful blue sky's, welcome to the Maldives. We got checked in ok and the beach villa is to die for all you can see from the bed is blue sky and ocean, it's heaven. We've been here a few days now and we are loving it. The food is delicious and the staff are very friendly. It's extremely hot so being able to dip In the ocean is a god send. Been snorkelling in the a...

Spice Garden....... Anil drops us off again and we are escorted through a forest of different trees and given a very informative tour through what they do and when, to make all sorts of homeopathic remedies. Then we are given some treatments. I get one yellow leg, which I'm assured will help with the mozzy bites. Shaky gets an aloe Vera neck and back massage. Very pleasant. Then some sort of cream is massaged into my face. Ok so this is personal now. Dave is giv...

The Tour..... Well, where to begin. I know, the 5:45 wake up call. The first of many wake up calls. We meet our driver guide Anil at 6:30 at the hotel reception. A very nice man, happy, cheerful and polite. We head off on our adventure via the back roads of Negombo heading towards the Elephant Orphanage. This was going to be a 2 hour drive, luckily our top of the range 2004 Nissan Sunny had Air conditioning (classed as a luxury car). A pleasant journey if you...