The word is a very exciting place

First stop for me and James was Leicester. Okay, so not quite Abu Dhabi or Moscow, but it was interesting enough. The first place we went was The Gorse hill Petting zoo. A small but quaint zoo, slap bang in the middle of Leicester believe it or not. We had a great morning feeding and petting the animals.                                                 James feeding a rather wooly specimen!  Also in Leicester is the Richard the 3rd museum. It features information all about his life, albeit in a rather simplified format, with little information about the time period as a whole. It does however, have the site of burial, right under your feet in the former car park, with a light showing you where he was buried. A rather interesting place, but expect to come away with more questions than answers, and you'll find yourself reading into the subject in much mor...

Okay, so I'd been in this position before. The nerves as I handed in my travel plans in at work and waiting to see if they would allow me to take six months off unpaid to travel. The excitement of deciding where to go. The hard work of researching places and booking everything up. And then, the thrill as you start to pack bags, making sure the washing is all done. Making sure all the stuff in the fridge is eaten. Meeting people to say goodbye. Then the moment your pulse starts to race. When you close the front door and lock it. As you place your bags in the boot, you know this is where it all starts. Starting the car and leaving the parking space. It only really hits you when you lose sight of your home. Your travels have begun. And by god, am I going to enjoy them! Four weeks round the UK, with short hops to Oslo and Dublin. Then a flight to Kiev/Kyiv, and working my way round eastern Europe and the Balkans. Now things are really getting exciting!

Okay, so here's March in a nut shell. Snow. Tonnes of it. The country was blanketed in a thick layer of snow, from the so called beast from the east, and most English people complained that this was the worst thing the east has given to us since communism. All I could say was that since the east has given us so many good things over the years (pierogi, skoda's, Getter Jaani and vodka) but no one would listen to me. Especially as most people didn't actually know exactly how far east and exactly where east this had all come from. But I digress. It caused havoc. Everywhere had to shut, deliveries at work turned up massively late. At least they turned up, half my colleauges didn't, even though some of them lived closer than me. And I live a 15 minute walk away. But that aside, the snow was pretty before it froze and became dangerous. The conservatory was coated in it, and we were a little worried that the extra weight may damage it, or worse, cause it to collapse, b...

First of all, I want to say that we live in a world full of pain and suffering. From conflict in Syria, Yemen and in central Africa, to poverty in disease in much of the developing world, to the waste of life in attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and also in Europe. Now is the time for humanity to be standing together and helping each other out. I know this following topic is pale in comparison to the horrors of war and poverty, but I think it's an important issue that needs addressing. A few days ago, it was announced there was a solution, agreed to by both parties involved, over the naming of Macedonia. I knew as soon as I heard it was not going to be right. And I was correct. The entire row, which has lasted over 25 years since the collapse of Yugoslavia, has caused nothing but trouble, economic and social problems in Macedonia. A country that, along with Slovenia, was fairly untouched by the horrors of ethnic cleansing, compared to Croatia, Serbia,Bosnia and Herzegovina, a...

I make sure that on my weekend off, me and James go somewhere or do something together. As anyone who works full time knows, it can be hard to fit the time in to do things together sometimes. Especially when I'm on night shifts, which means I miss him in the morning as he's gone by the time I get home, and in the evenings where I usually see him for an hour while getting ready for work, it means time together is hard to find. We had the weekend off, so we went out to do a little exploring. We had driven past the Racton ruin (also called the Racton Monument) before, so this time we purposely headed towards it. It is supposedly haunted, but while we were there nothing happened, but we had a good look about in this beautiful building. It's currently ruined, the stairs and floors having collapsed along time ago, along with the roof. But it has an eerie beauty to it. It's worth a look around, but please don't be a prat and leave your rubbish there. The...

Here is just a few other things to occur during February.                                                             Are you flirting with me?  So this is a sticker printing machine. James lent it to me to label up all the random assortment of herbs and spices we have in the cooking cupboard. I took great delight in labelling all of them, and then a few other things too! :D                                                     My first attempt at a salmon quiche  Dinner at the Rockstone with my friend Simon. Id had a bit to drink before then, and there was so much food it instantly sobered me up. It' bloody difficult to get a table in the Rockstone because it's so busy, but the food is wor...

I had some time off work during February, and decided to have a couple of days away in Cardiff, the capital of Wales. There's a direct train between Southampton and Cardiff, and it only takes about three hours, which was really handy. Cardiff has got lots of little things to see and do, it's been done up quite recently, and has a real modern feel to it.                                      The opera house, just in front of Roald Dahl plaza                                       You'll know what this is if you're a fan of Torchwood! ;)                                     The Welsh national assembly (their regional parliament)                 ...

January 2017 was a very busy month. The bathroom was being compleltely ripped out and redone, It was James's birthday, and I spent more time in the kitchen trying to perfect the Adana kebab. The bathroom was a nightmare. It was started in January, and three months later is still not done. Our builder disappeared without a trace, and hence we have been left with a half finished bathroom. This is what it looked like by the end of the first week. Since then it's dragged on, I was having to trek halfway across the city to my parents house to shower, and even now it's still not finished. Mostly it's done, something James and our housemate Rob have had to do themselves as well. But an interesting find was the wallpaper in the eaves, I absolutely love it, and I will try and get a strip of it before it's covered over again!                                               ...