The Syria thing is really starting to get on my nerves. Its going to ruin the whole thing. Firstly it made the ferry cancel that route. Now its making it almost impossible to consider crossing Syria. We could spend a few more months than planned pottering round Europe and east Europe praying that they can sort something out that stops the shooting but its winter ! the whole point of goign now was so its not too hot in North Africa. Should we go West Coast or ship to South America ? ARGH !!!!!!

I hate Vision Express....they were given a fair crack of the whip and i even had to resort to a Data Protection request to get my records. Why don't opticians give your PD measurment (Pupil Distance)? Answer, so they can stop you going to mail order places and getting glasses made on the cheap. The only optician in the UK that believes this is wrong is "Metsuki". You should google for them and order a free ruler to measure your own PD. We got ours today. Its the same one the opticians use. They even have a web camera App so you can get it measured online. Save quite a bit on your glasses and lenses.

As it happens we went to specsavers for Julies but i got mine from Metsuki. We now both have what Julie calls "pedo glasses"...If you want to see mine just take a look at the "Who are we?" page. Theres something dodgy about lenses that go dark all year round....

Finally got the wills sorted. £54 and done online. Mirror wills. Just hope they never come into play.

Thanks to a work colleague we now have online tracking on this very web site. We can use the Sat Phone to send an Email to the map and it then plots the location for all to see. The map can include not only the location but a short message as well.

Its bloody brilliant !!!!

Thanks to Bart for the hard work and hosting the map

Where are we?
password protected....
contact us
for the password.

No not Baz Luhmann but instead silver backed sun shades for the side windows and windscreen with suckers so they can be firmly positioned. Should stop people peeking through the window and keep out the heat when we park up. The benefit of them is that we can now dispense with the front curtains and the fan in the front can be used at night blowing all the way down the bed. Cool !

So we thought long and hard about getting a findmespot tracker to use so family and friends can see where we are. Thats all we did, we thought about it.

In the end having consulted with various web sites and other more seasoned travellers we decided to get a Satellite Phone instead. This will perform the same funtion of keeing the family informed about where we are but will also mean we can call for help should we need to. They can text us for free and we can then call them back. Sounds like a plan. Now all we need to do is compile a list of mechanics phone numbers world wide ! After all what good is a phone if you don't have any numbers?

Last two days has been a packing festival. Boxes all over the place. We started by emptying the garage so we can get the sofa's in there when we leave proper.

Whilst we were doing this garage reorganisation a Toad (not Frog) managed to get into the garage (we have them every year). "Luckily" Julie spotted it today and started (LMAO) screaming for assistance just before the garage light went out (its on a push timer!) I wandered down stairs with her in a bit of a tizzy. There she was stood on the steps in the dark. Its only a Toad. I scooped it up in bowl and put it back in next doors garden near to the pond.

My office is gradually filling with boxes.

Wheel bearings done and spares list filled. Got a couple more things to do on the car before its done. So its all becoming paperwork and admin now. We need to get the house sorted out. Theres a lot to do. The letting agency came round and they charge a lot for doing very little !