United Kingdom

From tomorrow we'll be computer-less so this will be our very last UK entry on the blog (for a while at least).

Work finished for us both on Wednesday so now our trip is a lot more real and the list of things left to do is shrinking all the time.

Friday was DD day - I met up with the girlies for our big trip to London. The trip started with a lovely bottle of champagne on the train to Paddington and a quick lunch in the hotel before we headed to Covent Garden for a drink before the show. We managed to find the only pub in London that didn't stock blackcurrant so Lizzie missed out on her second favourite tipple, cider and black. Then it was over to the Alwych Theatre to find our seats....

The show was fantastic, we all loved it. As Nia said, she had the Time of Her Life. I think the grins in the image below backs this up!

After the show we had some food and and then headed back to the hotel where we were all tucked up in bed at the ridiculously early hour of 10.30pm - paid off next morning though as we hit Oxford Street and its shops. Seeing as I have NO space in my rucksack for anything else, I concentrated on getting Nia, Eleri and Lizzie to spend their money and I think I was very successful! It was a fab weekend and I really enjoyed.

Me and Gareth spent about 3 hours this afternoon going through the packing (again) and checking we have absolutely EVERYTHING we need. Our kit looks disturbingly small though - I have a feeling it's all going to be rattling around in Gareth's huge rucksack ... maybe I will manage to sneak a few 'luxury' items in after all!

That's all the news for now - I think this is a sensible place to sign off. Our adventure starts properly on Wednesday morning when we set off, trek-style, for Llanelli train station (Gareth thinks we're getting a taxi but I think we should start as we mean to go on) and find our (get this!) First Class carriage seats (a lovely unexpected upgrade courtesy of all the other Reeseys) for the journey to London Paddington. Let the fun begin!

It's been a busy couple of weeks for us.

After a bit of a panic moment at the beginning of last week when it dawned on me just how much we had left to do before we set off, the good news is that we're now much more organised all round. We both have rucksacks, everything fits in the rucksacks and so now all we have to get through is the half a million or so jobs on our 'To do' list. It just seems that everytime we manage to clear a few more things off the list, we find a new set of things to do, keeping it around the half a million mark most of the time.....

After a few weekends UK-trotting, we stayed at home last weekend and Gareth whipped up a top curry and his now world-famous homemade onion bhajees (well almost world-famous) for the whole of the Rees Clan - and it wouldn't have been a proper night in without a bottle or two of champagne (I feel weak at the thought of no fizz for six months).

Our last full week in work flew by and Friday night I met up with the girlies for dinner and Dirty Dancing lessons before next week's trip to London. Eleri came well prepared with a bottle of fizz but drama of dramas - we couldn't open it, despite Nia's best efforts with a butter knife. We enjoyed anyway and I'm sure we'll make up for it in London.....

Saturday night we were in Southampton to celebrate Lynn and Jon's joint 30th birthdays and their engagement - big smiles all round. Got lots of top travel tips from Lynn's friends who between them seem to have travelled everywhere on earth and certainly everywhere on our route, which was great.

Carmarthen on Saturday night didn't know what had hit it when six classy chicks hit the town to celebrate Fi's birthday a bit early. I didn't know what had hit me Sunday morning when I woke up at seven (we finally got to bed after five) and had to get up to go to Leicester.

It was a fab night out though, starting off with our fab party table and balloons (all lost somehow an hour later on our walk to the pub) followed by lots of dancing and falling over by some, then finally a bit of kitchen karaoke and the traditional barefoot orange, lime and lemon-squashing ceremony before bed. At least our feet smelt nice!

After the excitement of the Murder Mystery night we headed up to Staffordshire with Dai and Di for our big day out at Alton Towers. Crammed in plenty of rides and lots of walking (expecially as the cable car wasn't working - 'technical difficulties' - something we would hear a lot more of as the day went on).

Towards the end of a very long queue for Spinball Wizard there was a very hairy moment as the ride completely stopped with four cars in various positions along the track. After they got the ride working again we decided that with only about two minutes before we got to the end of the queue we should risk it and we all survived!

After lunch Dai and Di got a good soaking on the Log Flume (we used the excuse of Gareth's poorly back to sit at the back of the ride - a good move) and after a few more technical difficulties on some of the scarier rides (making us wonder if we were some kind of curse) our plan was to get coffee and cake. On the way we passed the Teacups ride and decided to give it a whirl - what should have been the most tame of all the rides turned into a stomach-turning two minutes as Dai spun the wheel like crazy - leaving us all looking a bit green when we got off.

Our last ride was a few seconds of pure adrenalin on Oblivion before we grabbed our long awaited coffee and cake and stock up on sweeties and crisps for the journey home to Wales. When we lay our heads on our pillows and switched off the lights for bed, the room still felt like it was spinning!

Another week closer to departure and another busy weekend. Saturday night we stepped back in time to a Murder Mystery evening set in 1912 - cast for the evening (L-R):

Oscar Hemmingway III
Sister Morticia Lewinskaya
Georgette Michel
Bunny Mandelson
Agatha Eton-Hogg
Douglas Eton-Hogg MP

As the night went on we got more and more confused about how our characters were all involved in the murder and our accents got better and better the more wine we ploughed through - except for Dai whose Texan drawl started to sound like its batteries were running out by the time we got to dessert.

And whodunnit? Di - the crazy fake nun from Chicago of course!

With only five weeks before we go there is still lots to do - and lots of fab nights out to enjoy. Saturday, 2 September was Lisa and Steve's wedding party - we girlies cracked open a bottle of bubbly - well it was only right!

Booked our flights with Trailfinders at long last. Flying out of Heathrow on Wednesday, 11 October, onto Singapore, then straight back in the opposite direction to Sri Lanka, where we arrive at nearly midnight on Thursday, 12 October - hopefully there will be no delays and we will avoid flying on Friday the Thirteenth!!!