England, France, Belgium

I am sorry this has not been updated- unbelievably none of the youth hostels I have stayed in until today have had internet connections.

I fear there will be a fez typos as I get used to the continental AZERTY keyboards again.

The trip eventually got underway on the 4th March from Buckingham Palace (mainly because from there both Blonde and Guy could wave me off and get to work semi-on-time. Her Majesty was in residence, but she didn't come down to wave a hankey which was rather a shame.

Blonde, the little darling even brought me tea, banana and marmite sandwich!

Having left the sending off committee, I negotiated the City, stopping off at the Gherkin to see Jonno and Emily, and past Grenwich and into Kent. The first night was spent in a youth Hostel in Medway which was un utter nightmare to find.

Second day took in Canterbury, and I stayed with the Loder-Symonds who conveniently life near Dover!

An early start got me into Europe (Calais) at about 1pm local time, and I immediately headed for Dunkirk which has a youth hostel which was just about open for business- I had to hang around for a while for somepone to turn up.

I arrived in Belgium to be greeted by scores of shops peddling cheap tobacco seemingly exclusively to the British, and the area was full of "fag cruisers" coming down from Kent.

I headed south to Ypres, and passed by a great many British WWI cemeteries. That, along with passing through the Menin Arch was a highly sobering experience. The arch is dedicated to those who died fighting for the British Empire.