One week before our planned departure date and the sense of anticipation is growing. All that's left to do is pick up some US$, courses of antibiotics and get our Iranian visas back from the Magic Carpet Co.

Oh, and for Adrian to put his bike back together and to re-build the 15ft wide hole in the side of his house. We are concerned that he has confused his planned conservatory with Crystal Palace.

The 'going away' party at Adrian's country seat went extremely well and certain individuals were sporting mysterious bruises the next day. A sure sign of a good night. Liam over-dosed on his own punch and disappeared rather earlier than expected and this unfortunately meant that his renowned version of YMCA in Cyrillic failed to materialise. The food and barbecue were excellent but Adrian's attempt to burn a hole to Australia with an absolute inferno of a bonfire was unsuccessful. Got a good start to my tan though...

And a huge thanks to Sue for putting on a wonderful farewell do on Friday night. Slightly unfortunate that the letters of the 'Bon Voyage' message stuck to the walls were mysteriously re-arranged into 'Go old git'. But I appreciated the sentiment nonetheless. Thanks to everyone who turned up and especially those who thoughtfully refrained from commenting on my ever so tasteful 'pimp' shirt.