We have a home!

Well it´s been a huge week at home. I am very pleased to announce that Neil and Helene are engaged and are looking to set a date for Sep next year. My little bro has become a dad and acquired a fiancee since we´ve been gone. Unfortunately, we also missed Sean´s birthday party today and Helene´s 30th do last night. I´m especially gutted that I missed Neil re-enacting his proposal from earlier in the week on stage last night. Dad said he couldn´t believe it when Helene said yes again!

Congratulations Neil and Helene, we´re both delighted with the news, and when you told me I suddenly realised that someone had been chopping onions in my telephone booth before I used it(!)

We are in Cusco, Peru, now which has an altitude of over 3300m. As we are in Cusco until the New Year we decided we would rent an apartment for the time we are here (just under a month). Here are some pics. We have a shared courtyard and then the apartments lead off from there. It was renovated last month so everything is brand new.

There is good news and bad news for Bec. The bad news is that we have a TV with cable and on Weds morning I had a choice of 4 matches on 4 channels of the previous night´s football (also shown live). The good news is that now we have our own apartment Bec is able to have her own salt cellar for the first time in over 6 months. You should have seen the grin on her face and glint in her eye when she converted the plastic container the negatives had been in to her very own fast release salt cellar.

The city itself is very striking, these Incas knew how to town plan and the Spanish built some fantastic churches and plazas. We set off for the Inca trail on Friday morning, a 4 day trek. It is one of the main reasons for coming to South America, to see Macchu Picchu in all its glory.

The first pic is me after the derby looking smug, especially for Chaz and Dave (Um and Ste)!