Blimey, it's past my bedtime. Lisa and I have to leave here at 4:30am tomorrow morning for Gatwick, where we're catching a plane to America, land of the free, and home of my sister. So the plan was to be in bed by 7pm. Obviously it hasn't happened, but I had some ham and cheese in the fridge which was dangerously close to its use-by date, so I've been forced to fit in a lot of intensive bagel-eating today, which has naturally put me behind schedule.

Gatwick is conveniently situated a mere 35 minutes from Brighton, making it ideally placed for anyone staying on the south coast. Unfortunately Lisa and I left there last night and drove back to Shotley Gate (conveniently situated an hour and three quarters from Gatwick). It may seem like an odd decision, but like I say, I had ham and cheese in the fridge, and a freezer full of bagels, so there was no decision to be made really.

On the way, we dropped in to Lisa's sister's new house, where we were given the guided tour by her nephew, before settling down to play some wholesomely violent video games. I was consistently impressed with the level of machine-gun efficiency displayed by today's six year olds, and despite being given the warning "I'm going to creep up behind you now and throw a grenade at you", I still didn't manage to avoid death. So much for being forewarned.

Anyhoo, I've weighed my case (26kg - about the size of two baby aardvarks) (which is surprising, coz I've only packed one) and we're ready to go. I've lost a stone since Christmas, so my aim for the next fortnight is to see how much of that I can put back on. Big Sis has already suggested we have breakfast at the local waffle house (where apparently they put maple syrup on the bacon), so I think we're looking at a minimum of 200%. Possibly in the first weekend.