Ooooohhh Betty....

Blimey, everything is coming round so quickly - Saturday night was our leaving party which we set the date for months ago thinking we would be flying a little sooner than we are and I can’t believe it’s been and gone already.

I’ll start by apologising for my pathetic attempt at a speech. As Matt pointed out whilst saving me and taking over, I was a little drunk and as you all heard, for some reason, turned into Frank Spencer?! Now I am sober though, I would really like to thank everyone for coming and for your lovely cards and presents. And a special thank you to both our parents for, well... everything!

Also, a huge thank you goes to DJ Mat Mabe, who played the funkiest of tunes and kept everyone strutting their stuff ‘til the early hours of the morning. Although, I must say i do think you have a little gap in your collection Mat - no Pussy Cat Dolls, what was that all about??!!

Anyway, thanks again to everyone who came, Matt and I really enjoyed ourselves and we hope you did too.

Click here to see more pics.

graduation time...

Wednesday 12th July was Trace's graduation ceremony at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. It was a really nice day and everyone was dead proud. The gowns looked great and the ceremony went really well (nope, she didnt trip... even though the walk did look particularly long and scary!)

After the ceremony we all went to Manchester Town Hall for a wee dram and then headed off for dinner... while Charlotte slept in the car :)

At night we went out to Curshaws for a meal, which was really nice and left us all feeling suitably stuffed and drunk! (well, I was anyhoo...)

Well done again Trace, you deserved it and worked really hard to get it. We managed to get lots of nice piccies of Trace with both family and friends who she studied with. Click to see 'em

child's play... NOT!!

Just a quickie... last Saturday was the Nantwich Family Fun Day and we decided to take Jack and Angel (Trace's other nephew and niece). It was a nice day, with lots for the kids to do; fairground rides, big massive slides (bigger than a house according to Jack), bands, candy floss etc... However, the day turned into a couple of hours because we were worn out! I salute all parents now and in the future, and apologise if I ever had as much energy!Luckily, just as Trace and me were about to lose consciousness, Jack came over to us and said he felt tired... PHEW! Unfortunately, whilst we thought Jack had merely taken pity on us, he was actually coming down with a really bad bout of chicken pox, which has absolutely covered him from head to toe in lurgy!! Poor little thing!! Get well soon :)

We had a really nice time and as the pics show, they really are the cutest pair!

Click here for pics

Hi Ho, Hi Ho....

It's off to work we go.....

Yes, we've sorted our first job in New Zealand - Pet sitting!

We saw a post on the backpackers board asking for pet sitters and thought it sounded too good to be true, but we emailed it anyway and it turned out to be even better than we expected.

We're looking after 4 dogs, 2 cats and 3 sheep for a lovely couple called Pam and Mike Jolly who live in the most gorgeous place called Piha which is about 50 minutes drive from Auckland.

We're job sharing with a couple from Canada and we get 4 weeks free accomodation in exchange for 18 days work looking after the animals whilst they're away in their apartment in Oz.

Pam has been kind enough to send us some photos and the one above is 3 of the dog's we'll be looking after - how cute - i'll never want to leave!


This will be our accomodation whilst we're there - Cabbage Tree Cabin!

We arrive in Auckland late on the 6th August and we'll stay in a hostel for the night, then travel to Piha the next day to get started.

We really can't wait now, especially when we've been lucky enough to fall upon such a nice start to our trip.

You can see more photos of where we'll be staying etc here. There's also a gorgous photo of Snowy the sheep - he has twin sisters called Lulu and Lulu!

Also, this is a link to a website decicated to Piha - as well as Pam and Mike's own website

Only 4 weeks to go now!!

Just one more photo for you, for now anyway... this was taken by Pam and Mike as they were flying over Piha to Australia -

up... up... and away.....

This week has been brilliant! Tinged with a couple of sad moments...

Thursday was my (m@) last day at Alive Network and I have to say, it really was a sad moment. Although I'd only been there since October, the fact that the company is so young and friendly made it really easy to settle in quickly. Its not often that you can work somewhere and genuinely say that you think highly of everyone!! I'll take away some great memories. Everyone made my last day really special, and although I've said it before, if it wasn't for the fact of the opportunity to travel, it would honestly be the place I could see me retiring from (many years from now of course!). So, from me to Alive Network, I just want to say thanks for being the most funky, friendly and creative company I have ever had the pleasure to work at, and this is all down to its people!

On the flip-side... I got some fantastic leaving gifts (again, proving what a top lot of folk they is!)... They got me a digital hand-held camcorder (with 1Gb memory) that literally fits into a shirt pocket! Awesome! (Check out the balloon pics below)...and, they got me the AA guide to New Zealand, which is the guide we have used for all our other travels, but were just too tight to buy this time...
They really thought about what to get and I couldn't have asked for anything better :)

Again, Saturday was a good news, bad news scenario... Firstly England plummeted out of the World Cup to Portugal... on Penalties again! Devastating... 'nuff said!
However, the balloon flight went ahead!!! We took off from Cholmondely Castle and flew for over 1 hour before coming down with a BANG! Even the pilot agreed it was a particularly bad landing... Still, it was worth it! So, thanks Ma and Al for the pressie, it was amazing!

click here to see them all...