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.