And so the Journey Begins!

The long awaited beginning to our well publicised planned move begins in a little over 12 hours time. Early tomorrow morning we begin with a drive down to the south coast of England to my home town of Southampton to be precise. This morning we were greeted with the news that Mexico is or will be effectively shut down until the 6^th of May. It is just as well we were not planning of going directly at this moment. Our journey tomorrow is just a small step on our long road ahead. We stay the night in Southampton before traveling up to London the next day. The reason we are taking this detour is because we will be taking my two young nieces along for the London part of this trip. Saturday night and we will be at the airport to meet my Mother in law as she and her boyfriend arrive for her first ever visit to Europe.

Sunday will be a tour of London, or as much of the capital as we can manage in a single day. We will then return my two nieces to their mother before we continue with a trip into one of the south of England's oldest areas of woodland and heath called the New Forest, before taking a slight detour to stop in on Stonehenge.

The next stage sees us traveling north to Scotland and a few days touring that part of the British Isles. We will be based in Stirling and the trip will include visits to the cities castle, the nearby Wallace monument as well as driving further afield to hopefully spot 'Nessie' on Loch Ness. We may even have time for one or two castles on route. On our way north to Stirling we are stopping off at Gretna, this is the small town just across the border where young English couples used to elope to so they could get married. Our trip will also include a stopover at Roslyn Chapel, made famous from the novel and movie about the DeVinci Code.

The final weekend of this mini tour will see us take a train beneath the English Channel and into Paris. At the end of this weekend my Mother in law continues on across Europe as far as Austria, we however return to the UK. We then at this point say our farewells to England as we head off across the Atlantic Ocean.

We are seriously hoping that the whole swine flu episode will be at an end at that point, or at least calmed down somewhat and we can enjoy the start of our new lives in our new location. I am hoping to add chapters to this story as they unfold. The next two weeks however my internet time may be somewhat erratic to say the least, I will do my utmost to update whenever I am able to, au revoir.