Apologies...

to all our avid blog readers for the shockingly poor record of posts in the last few weeks. As you can imagine it has been rather busy, but that is no excuse. From now on we have set ourselves a target of a minimum of one update a week, normally on Sunday night or Monday. To make up for it we are going to add some pictures of our trip to Miyajima Island today.

Miyajima Island

Today (Sunday 30th October) Therese and I headed off to Miyajima Island, just off the coast to the south-west of Hiroshima. Miyajima is No. 2 on the Hiroshima tourist trail (after the Peace Park) mainly because of the famous 'Torii Gate', but also because it has an ample supply of shrines, temples and some beautiful scenery. There are also lots of very tame red deer getting fat on all the treats given to them by the tourists.

Tired, but ready to go...

It's been a crazy last few days - from a long weekend of farewells, our anniversary, two very tiring moving days, then back into the office to clear up the last few things but we are finally ready to go. Tomorrow morning, we get picked up at 9:15 and fly at 13:00 to Tokyo, before our internal flight down to Hiroshima. All in all I reckon it will take 24 hours door to door. Thankfully we have a day's rest on Monday as it is a public holiday in Japan.

Preparations & Goodbyes

Well things are getting busy, as we prepare for the move. Therese has left work - saying a tearful goodbye to the House of Commons for a couple of years. We've started our round of goodbyes and farewell outings as well, culminating in the official London bash at the weekend in Vinopolis, followed by Maggie Jones's.

We're scheduled to move out next Tuesday & Wednesday, so you might not hear much more from us until we are moved into our flat in Japan the following Tuesday. I'll make sure to send everyone the address and phone no. before we go.

As if this wasn't enough, it is our first wedding anniversary on Sunday - amazing how quickly a year goes by! We're celebrating by spending a night in the Great House in Lavenham, http://www.lavenham.co.uk/greathouse/, the place where we got engaged almost 3 years ago.

BTW if anyone fancies buying a delightful, 2 bedroom, terraced cottage then we'd be much obliged - check out http://www.rightmove.co.uk. The photos don't do it justice, it's actually much nicer than that - honest!

Home in Hiroshima

Below is a photo from the window of our new flat in Hiroshima. As you can see we're by one of the 7 rivers in Hiroshima, Enko-gawa in our case.

In contrast here are some pictures of our home in Kelvedon, we will really miss it, especially since we have spent so much time and effort in doing it up.

Up & Running....

Welcome to Martin and Thérèse's blog!!

This is going to be our online record of our adventures in Japan over the next two years. That is until I sort out a better website...but in the mean time, we hope you like it.