Introducing the adventures of Naughty Doggie

(Our first blog post. Travels take-off = T-minus 12 days!!!)

A couple of months back we were attempting an exploratory venture into the hidden depths of Freya’s (second) wardrobe to ascertain just how much stuff we had to dump before going travelling, when we came across this ----->

Naughty Doggie was given to us as a present from our second mum Julie as a reminder of our year lodging at her lovely home in South Bucks, before we made the big move to London more than five years ago.

He belonged to Ben, the family’s adorable and ancient dog (some sort of terrier mix I think), who used to sleep on the end of our bed every night. You would often arrive home from work to see Ben playfully ragging his favourite toy around the back garden. Naughty Doggie has been through the wars.

But despite his discolouring (numerous times in the wash), and his patched-up exterior (Ben having been in a particularly bad mood), the discovery brought a big smile to both our faces. It turned out that day was the year anniversary of Julie’s death.

Naughty Doggie holds some beautiful memories from our time in Iver, and it felt right we should capture a few more together – so he’s going to be our official travelling mascot.

Julie would have loved it, plus he deserves a good break after the various stitch-back-together operations over the years. There’s life in the old dog yet!

++ We've set up this blog to try and chronicle the highlights of our travels - as our own little online diary, and to help other would-be travellers. We also want to keep a record of any particularly good hotels/hostels, food places, and excursions - which all have their own tabs :) These should be updated regularly when we leave for India at the end of August. Enjoy!