In the last fortnight Christine and I have moved away from York and left our current jobs to take a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend three months together and travel around Japan, New Zealand and the Cook Islands.

I wrote a little about the whys a couple of weeks ago but this blog is where we’re going to record our adventures.

We also need to introduce you to Jim. He was a present from my sister with the instruction that we chose a name and, Amelie style, take photos of this little knitted character everywhere we go. We chose Jim after James Cook, because he ‘discovered’ New Zealand and the Cook Islands.

But Jim’s going one better than James Cook because he didn’t travel to Japan and that is our first stop.