Good morning. This is just a quick post before we leave for the airport. We’ve had a few people asking what is the best way of contacting us, so I thought I would give you your options. Probably the best way is via email, facebook or through our blog. We have our netbook with us which has msn messenger and skype installed, so whenever internet is within range we’ll be online. You can find us on skype by searching for my name; “Christian Clement” and my msn may be found by using the email address below. It’ll be nice to speak to some of you when we’re miles from home. Our emails are in code below, because of malicious webtrawlers (replace “at” with @ and “dot” with . ):
christianclement at hotmail dot com
andwoodvine at yahoo dot co dot uk
Our mobiles are staying in the UK so don’t expect any replies to texts. You may receive a glut of replies in 6 months when we return though!!
So that is it. The next time we write will be from Australia. We have a 28hour journey with Air China from Heathrow to look forward to. I’ve heard to expect video games and films to keep us entertained so that will be interesting.
Will be much happier when the flight is over, I’m a bit nervous. Will speak to you from the other side!!
Saturday 31 October 2009
Friday 30 October 2009
Excitement
One more sleep to go. Our bags are packed (finally), our tickets printed and an excessive amount of wine gums for the journey bought.
We haven’t had chance to completely unpack our Manchester stuff, but perhaps the Moor House fairy (mam) will hide things away for us until we return, bronzed (yeah right) and carefree, to sift through endless accumulated junk and papers.
I finished work on Wednesday afternoon and since then I feel as though we haven’t stopped. I feel like we have been organising this trip for ages, have spent so long on the internet and phone, reading, researching, preparing. Yet here we are, less than twelve hours until we leave the house and with only our first two nights of accommodation booked. Of course these things work themselves out. They always do. But yet it bemuses me how I don’t seem quite prepared.
I’m sure I won’t sleep so well tonight. Too excited. Even the conversation on Tuesday night with Ian and Laura about plane crashes and highly venomous Australian snakes hasn’t curbed my enthusiasm. Although I now know what to do if chased by a crocodile so if nothing else, I’m prepared for that.
I think one of the main things I’m looking forward to is running in all these amazing places. Some of the photos I’ve seen (and also on the google map orange man thing) are really incredible and I hope I will get chance to escape into some of those places on my runs, just me and the scenery, not a car, building or I-phone in sight (not too far away from civilisation though Mam!). I think Chorlton water park will be well and truly put in the shade!!
I’ve got a fairly early start to fit in a run tomorrow before we head to Heathrow but Chris may try and blog a little whilst I’m out training. Then our next entry will be from Australia! Now where are those wine gums, yum, yum……
We haven’t had chance to completely unpack our Manchester stuff, but perhaps the Moor House fairy (mam) will hide things away for us until we return, bronzed (yeah right) and carefree, to sift through endless accumulated junk and papers.
I finished work on Wednesday afternoon and since then I feel as though we haven’t stopped. I feel like we have been organising this trip for ages, have spent so long on the internet and phone, reading, researching, preparing. Yet here we are, less than twelve hours until we leave the house and with only our first two nights of accommodation booked. Of course these things work themselves out. They always do. But yet it bemuses me how I don’t seem quite prepared.
I’m sure I won’t sleep so well tonight. Too excited. Even the conversation on Tuesday night with Ian and Laura about plane crashes and highly venomous Australian snakes hasn’t curbed my enthusiasm. Although I now know what to do if chased by a crocodile so if nothing else, I’m prepared for that.
I think one of the main things I’m looking forward to is running in all these amazing places. Some of the photos I’ve seen (and also on the google map orange man thing) are really incredible and I hope I will get chance to escape into some of those places on my runs, just me and the scenery, not a car, building or I-phone in sight (not too far away from civilisation though Mam!). I think Chorlton water park will be well and truly put in the shade!!
I’ve got a fairly early start to fit in a run tomorrow before we head to Heathrow but Chris may try and blog a little whilst I’m out training. Then our next entry will be from Australia! Now where are those wine gums, yum, yum……
Thursday 22 October 2009
9 days to go!!
First of all I must say a big "welcome along" if you have made it this far.... taking that first click from the group emails is a bit of a step, I know that I myself am prone to just thinking that I'll do it later, which invariably never ends up happening.
So this is my first post and the first post of this new blog. You might imagine this entry as a bit of a prologue to what is about to happen. Which reminds me that I should really explain what is going on... In just over a weeks time (31st October) myself and Andrea are packing our bags and jumping on a plane to Sydney Australia and consequently commencing a six month break from the rat-race to take in the sights and sounds of New Zealand and the USA as well. We'll be doing a mix of backpacking and staying in some places for a bit longer and hopefully experiencing the cultures and meeting some like-minded people. As well as generally having a great time!!
We figured that this was as good a time as any to do it. As many of you will know, I have just finished my PhD studies (last Wednesday was my viva which I passed) and am currently in a state of limbo. That period between finishing university and entering the job market. I have a few ideas of what I would like to do, but I'm not going to talk about that as i don't want to lose any readers just yet ;). The long and short of it is that I will hopefully be starting a career soon, which will mean that this sort of trip probably won't be possible in the future. So for myself there is nothing to really hold me back, apart from the severe lack of funds haha. PS this isn't a call for money, although if you have a spare fiver, stick it in the post ;).
Andrea is also at a stage in her career where a break won't harm her job prospects. She has progressed really well and is now a senior healthcare manager within the NHS, which considering her age and the fact that she started off training as a physio as an undergraduate is rather impressive. The NHS have actually been really supportive and when she put in her application for time off and mentioned that there was possibility of her qualifying for the Commonwealth Games next year, albeit a very slim possibility, her managers were all over it. She even made the inhouse magazine lol.
Apart from that, anyone who knows us will know that we are both massively into athletics. Andrea is on a big upward curve with her running and some of the opportunities that are available to runners of her ability in the countries that we are visiting, in terms of training and racing, are totally unrivalled within the UK. We will potentially be doing some of the high quality meets in the US and maybe some in Oz, but we'll have to see. Obviously you guys will be the first to find out. Hopefully this break will allow us to experience some of these things. Running has a relatively short career span, so this sort of trip cannot really be put off. In terms of our situation it really is a case of now or never!!
I don't want to write too much now or else I'll soon have nothing left to say and you guys will soon get bored (I'm impressed if you have even made it this far). Andrea will be along soon and will probably explain a bit better what's going on.
So goodbye for now. I will post once more before we head off and then the next posts will be coming from Australia. Yeay.
Feel free to comment and send abuse etc. It'll be nice to know that some people are reading and interested in what we have to say.
So this is my first post and the first post of this new blog. You might imagine this entry as a bit of a prologue to what is about to happen. Which reminds me that I should really explain what is going on... In just over a weeks time (31st October) myself and Andrea are packing our bags and jumping on a plane to Sydney Australia and consequently commencing a six month break from the rat-race to take in the sights and sounds of New Zealand and the USA as well. We'll be doing a mix of backpacking and staying in some places for a bit longer and hopefully experiencing the cultures and meeting some like-minded people. As well as generally having a great time!!
We figured that this was as good a time as any to do it. As many of you will know, I have just finished my PhD studies (last Wednesday was my viva which I passed) and am currently in a state of limbo. That period between finishing university and entering the job market. I have a few ideas of what I would like to do, but I'm not going to talk about that as i don't want to lose any readers just yet ;). The long and short of it is that I will hopefully be starting a career soon, which will mean that this sort of trip probably won't be possible in the future. So for myself there is nothing to really hold me back, apart from the severe lack of funds haha. PS this isn't a call for money, although if you have a spare fiver, stick it in the post ;).
Andrea is also at a stage in her career where a break won't harm her job prospects. She has progressed really well and is now a senior healthcare manager within the NHS, which considering her age and the fact that she started off training as a physio as an undergraduate is rather impressive. The NHS have actually been really supportive and when she put in her application for time off and mentioned that there was possibility of her qualifying for the Commonwealth Games next year, albeit a very slim possibility, her managers were all over it. She even made the inhouse magazine lol.
Apart from that, anyone who knows us will know that we are both massively into athletics. Andrea is on a big upward curve with her running and some of the opportunities that are available to runners of her ability in the countries that we are visiting, in terms of training and racing, are totally unrivalled within the UK. We will potentially be doing some of the high quality meets in the US and maybe some in Oz, but we'll have to see. Obviously you guys will be the first to find out. Hopefully this break will allow us to experience some of these things. Running has a relatively short career span, so this sort of trip cannot really be put off. In terms of our situation it really is a case of now or never!!
I don't want to write too much now or else I'll soon have nothing left to say and you guys will soon get bored (I'm impressed if you have even made it this far). Andrea will be along soon and will probably explain a bit better what's going on.
So goodbye for now. I will post once more before we head off and then the next posts will be coming from Australia. Yeay.
Feel free to comment and send abuse etc. It'll be nice to know that some people are reading and interested in what we have to say.
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