The last few weeks seem to have simply melted away and it’s now reached the time of countdowns. You know the kind, anything to make it seem closer: 34 days till we take off, 29 days till my last shift at work, 14 more working days till my holidays actually start. Whichever way you choose to look at it though, it’s getting close. (more…)

The weeks are flying by and with only 12 to go, it is now beginning to feel real. The airline tickets were booked in March and after an initial flurry of searching for and booking accommodation everything settled down. Of course things then have a habit of creeping up on you when you’re not looking! So, back to getting things finalised. The car rental is now organised and there’s not a lot left to do except decide which passes will be best and whether a London Pass is worth the cost as opposed to a Heritage Pass and an Oyster card. Decisions, decisions…

After exploring and extending the family tree, what started as a “Wouldn’t it be nice to…” moment quickly became a booking on a flight to the UK to follow the ancestral trail. Finding ancestors in the Scottish highlands from before the time of Bonnie Prince Charlie and Culloden initiated a planned trip to Nairn near Inverness, with a fair bit of exploration on the way north from our starting point of London and again on the return trip.

So in just over 12 weeks time we will be UK bound with Emirates, leaving Perth, Western Australia on the 24th September and arriving in London on the 25th with a quick half-way stop in Dubai.