Yes, we’ve made it down to a very snow filled coaley. Feeling very weird that the flight will be on us in no time at all. Clarence the plastic dinosaur( kindly given to me by becky) has braved the interest of two cats so far and almost been eaten by Josh the dog. What an adventure for him. Wonder what he will make of flying? Well, I suppose he was made in china (perhaps he was shipped over?) – maybe he has some travel advice for us……

Anyway, thanks to the Hobson parents for their hospitality.

Bye for now!

Viv/Sev

As Viv has already said we have now left Sheffield. It feels very strange to say that I am no longer a resident of Sheffield after 9 and a hlaf years there, even stranger still that I should find myself in Killamarsh: one of my old haunts and somewhere I thought that I would never revisit.

Feeling a bit frazzled too after a hectic few days. My week off work didn’t prove to be that relaxing with the amount of sorting out packing and socialising that had to be fitted in. This culminated in most of stuff going into a large wooden crate on Friday which felt a bit odd. We took the last of my stuff to Viv’s parents earlier today through a blizzard and I am now officially living out of a single rucksack!

Tomorrow we’re off down to Coaley to visit my parents and then Wednesday we leave the country never to return for a while – I feel very excited but also somewhat jittery at that prospect, not unexpectedly!

Thanks everyone who turned up to our leaving party last Sunday, I had a great night but it all went too quickly and I felt I had to spread my time a little thin amongst everyone who had come to see us. You can see some photos from the night on mine or Viv’s flickr site.

All for now, the next time you hear from us we will hopefully be in New Zealand! 🙂

Finally I’d like to give an honourable mention to my current favourite cliche, one for which I have already, rightly, recieved much ridicule for using(!): “our life from now is a blank canvas”

J-Hob

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Ay up all,

The first Leg of our trip is under way! We’ve travelled an entire 10 miles to Killamarsh, escaping the blizards of Sheffield. Tonight we are formally of no fixed abode and we’re staying with the sev parents. It feels rather strange. Our entire lives in two bags. We are still living a life of comfort now, getting cooked for and helpling ourselves to a parent sized stash of booze and other goodies. Although John has already escaped a snog attempt by my Gran so I think the life of getting into scrapes has certainly begun for him.

Will miss everyone so please add your sarcastic and even non sarcartic comments onto this blog! Would love to know all goss including bad things about work because it makes me feel glad that i’ve escaped.

Sev 😉

After months of waiting and preparing to go our departure date, 30th November, now seems only just around the corner – in two and half weeks we will be on the plane to New Zealand, the first destination on our world-wide adventure!

Viv has already finished her job, moved out of her house, put her stuff in storage and moved into my room – it’s feeling a bit cramped with both of us in there but we’re slowly reclaiming some space as my posessions migrate to packing boxes. I absolutely despise packing and as a result procrastinate lots when I have to do it which only results in prolonging the pain. I’ve made a decent dent in it now anyway.

I’m really looking forward to finishing work myself at the end of this week. It will be great to have a bit of spare time before we go so that we can properly enjoy our last few days in this country. We also have a lot of socialising to be done as we get round to seeing everyone that we want to see prior to leaving. No doubt there will be lots of last-minute sorting out of stuff to be done too.

We are now starting to think about our first few days in New Zealand and finding a campervan to use for our stay there. Our current thinking is to buy one and sell it at the end. This could work out being much cheaper because we could sell it for almost the value we bought it for, but comes with the extra risk that if it breaks then we’re left to foot the bill. Fortunately I know a thing or two about car mechanics so should be able to spot a shit-heap from decent motor.

Exciting times, but also quite scary too – to know that we will be leaving family and so many great friends behind, potentially not seeing them for 18 months or so. No doubt there will be a few tears in the coming fortnight but sometimes you just have to step outside of your comfort zone and follow your heart. Viv summed it up very well in saying that it feels like “stepping into the abyss” because once we set off so much is unknown.

Anyway, roll on the abyss!

Here’s a few photos from our last walk out in the Peak District, enjoying the English countryside (and weather!) while we still can: show_random($num=4, $tags=’castleton’); ?>

This is the blog site for John & Viv’s round the world trip that we will be starting on 30th November when we board the plane to New Zealand. Our plans as to how long we stay travelling and where we go are fairly loose, we plan to buy single tickets as we go so that we can choose at the time where we plan to go next. We also plan to do some voluntary work as we go round, more than likely something environmentally and ecologically based.

As well as posts about what we’ve been doing/seeing we will also be uploading lots of photos from the places that we have visited.

Anyway, we hope that you enjoy reading about our trip. You can subscribe to recieve e-mail updates every time we put a new post here – just pop your email address into the e-mail notification box on the right.

I just like to add a final request to please send us lots of emails with news from home, you’d be surprised how interesting the seemingly mundane is when you’ve been away from home for a while!

John