Preparation

Yes, we got married a year ago today. We've had a great weekend relaxing & remembering the good times of a year ago - thanks to everybody who's sent us such kind emails and messages.

And once again thank you to everyone that helped make it such a special couple of days last year, whether you worked tirelessly to create beautiful bridesmaid's dresses (Jon's mum) or organising an entire event on your own (Angi's mum), sacrificed your birthday celebrations for the greater good (George - hope you've made up for it this year), or just gave us some stories to chuckle about (Jon P, Gareth, Pete...and the groom!). Or simply gave us the money to enable it all to happen (Angi's dad, plus everyone who contributed to our extended honeymoon!). We treasure all the memories.

Jon & Angi xxx

We just found out we have reservations for the French Laundry on 6th March, yippeeee!

http://www.frenchlaundry.com/
http://www.frenchlaundry.com/
Now, what to wear?! We'll need to 'scrub up' (geddit?) well. I can take a dress and some jewelled flats. Jon will need a jacket but this seems an impractical thing to take backpacking with us. Answers on a postcard, please...

In other news, we are in the midst of packing the flat up. There are heavy boxes everywhere which we'll need to clear for our party tomorrow. It's exhausting! I think we're going to need a holiday after this. Ha!

Hep A booster, Hep B (3 jabs over at least a month but probably should take longer and means we may need a booster in Oz), and Rabies (woof! 3 more jabs). And the latter is really expensive!

Ouch, and ouch again.

Angi is attempting to conquer her morbid fear of needles by dosing herself with codeine and liberally applying lidocaine topically over the presumed puncture site.

Lidocaine is typically used by nursing mothers with sore nipples, so it's clearly not strong enough to knock out a baby and so unlikely to work on Angi. It is especially rubbish when the nurse doesn't bother to inject inside of the lidocained-up area.

Jon is acting the hero and not making a fuss about the jabs.

We'll see who's the toughest when we end up getting Delhi Belly.

1. Mount Everest at Everest Base Camp, Tibet - just awe-inspiring
2. Hopefully some kind of erupting or farting volcano, somewhere along the coast of South America - I wish to chase lava
3. The Salar de Uyuni (salt flats), Bolivia - hallucinogenic by all accounts!
4. Glaciers calving in Patagonia, Chile/Argentina - if we can get there in July
5. General Sherman, the largest giant redwood in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park, California - I will be trying to hug it
6. The night sky in the Atacama Desert, Chile - the best place in the world to see the stars (Hollywood? Pah!)
7. The coral reefs around Indonesia (is this cheating because it's not in the animals section?)
8. The Amazon rainforest - the lungs of the world
9. The Blue Hole (technical dive site), Belize - amazing from the inside-out
10. The Grand Canyon, Arizona - you know, the big crack

I think we'll tick all of these off our list.....

AP (why is Jon signing off as JP?)

1. Easter Island statues
2. Nazca Lines
3. Angkor Wat
4. Macchu Picchu
5. Tikal
6. Great Wall of China
7. Terracotta Army
8. Taj Mahal
9. Borubudur
10. Sydney Opera House

JP