in kaunas, lithuania.

slept in an abandonned farm that was quite nice but had loads of mosquitoes in the morning. not good.

it rained all morning and last night, so much so that water came into our tent. we then had to put away a wet tent; this occurance is not all that rare as it rains when ever daddy assures us it wont i.e. half of the time.

many lorries here.

the sat nav, vera, is now a point of frustration as she does not have a sufficient number of maps for this are of the world. daddy's anger knows no bounds.

we are getting ourselves geared up for russia; this includes putting songs on lewis' mp3 player.

we have been bird watching: storks with massive nests.

i am feeling sorry for myself as being around people of lesser intelligence is finally taking its toll.

have not started lewis' lessons yet.

we have been unable to take any good photos because of daddy's driving but mainly because we are not very good at taking photographs.

still in warsaw

daddy's birthday today.
his wish was to rearange the car.
this was done with gusto.

pancakes for breakfast.

we have done lots of domestic shopping today and bought 200 tea lights for daddy's polish cake for one 50p. rather proud of ourselves.
have been making ourselves at home in tesco. the tescos provide a far more pleasent shopping experience in poland than they do i england as they are more spacious.

daddy's cards were rather amusuing, but mine was a cut above the rest- naturally.
daddy has been proudly wearing two birthday badges all day. cool.

leaving early in the morning.

we have made it to warsaw after an adventurous evening.

after deciding on a copice to camp in, we had trouble placing the tent due to the vast amount of ants- everywhere.

the tent was eventually erected on some bumpy ground which meant that we had diffuculty getting to sleep. my sleeping difficulties were increased by a giant snail digging into my back.

daddy and tessie had lots of trouble sleeping.

at the beginning of the night a car drove up the wooded path to our (camp) but soon left us alone. later on, in the middle of the night, we heard another car and the footsteps and shouts of men followed by an extremely bright torch being flashed inside our tent. the cause of the disturbance was three large men armed with torches and rifles. we asumed that they were the villiage mob, come too check out the wierd people in the forest.

the language barrier prevented proper communication but we hastily showed them our passports and that seemed to be ok. after a little more loud talk they left us alone.

the night's events were rounded off by lewis having his first proper cry in the morning accompanied by a refusal to leave the tent.

oh the japes.

(today has been less exciting: we stumbled upon a film shoot and daddy got angry when our sat nav, vera, did not readily show us the way to this internet cafe)

greetings in polish!

today is a lazy day.
we are at a motel just accross the german/polish border.
daddy made us miss the 'welcome to poland' sign.
we have yet to sucessfully take a picture of such a sign. this does not please me.
experienced first proper rain last night and this morning as we were camped just outside berlin.
berlin was nice and impressive making us feel as though we were on a holiday which, believe me, is not the case.
daddy and tessie's first taste of alcohol since tuesday was somewhat of an event as daddy's 'withdrawal symptoms' subsided for the first time in 2 days. praise the Lord.
i am doing my best to impart my vast french language knowledge to lewis. i should take a while.
hoping to stay with friends in lodz tonight. this will undoubtedly be one of our last outposts of civilisation before russia.

we have finally got down to some good, hard driving on the open road and have made it to berlin.

slept rough for the first time last night: half way to berlin.

in the morning we were in trouble with the owner of a stable yard for disturbing the horses.

still amazingly hot the whole time but we are powering through.

Hallo! (Day 4?)

We have sucessfully made it to KÖln after an hours traffic jam.

this morning daddy and tessie had thier first theatrical row. most exciting: tessie was right and we discovered that daddy is incompetant.

we took a ferry at 02:00 on monday morning and arrived in Dunkirk at 04:00.
Lewis was the only one who was afforded sleep.

Monday night we stayed in Ypres and during the day we visited the Flanders Field Museum and Tyne Cot Cemetery. both were impressive and thought provoking.

last night we stayed just outside Maastrict and in the morning we went to service a water softener for an old customer. good customer service.