Nearly all of our friends now know that we are going off in January 2012 to sail to New Zealand!

For anyone who hasn't heard, we are going on a "segment" of a world cruise on the ship Aurora, leaving Southampton on 4th January 2012.

We'll leave Kirkcaldy on the 3rd and go down to Southampton by rail, stay overnight in a hotel close to the railway station and board the next day.

We don't get to our first stop until the 9th, it's Madeira, and we will love to see it again in much nicer weather than we left in Kirkcaldy

We are excited already, although I am a bit miffed that I am going to have to fork out £77.50 for a new passport!

I have bought a new laptop to take with us on the ship, so I can merrily blog away to my hearts content, telling all the folks at home how we are doing en route.

Also the photos are going to be all sorted out en route, as we take them, each day we plan to take some time out to do some work on the snaps.

Last holiday was a one week cruise and I brought 300 photos back with me, so if you multiply that by about six, then add on several weeks in New Zealand, we would never be able to have a holiday again, we'd be still busy doing the photos from this epic trip.

Watch this space for more information on the preparations for the journey