This poor old, not-terribly dynamic, blog-of-sorts has finally succumbed to the onslaught of facebook.

We'll be here and here until all this social networking nonsense blows over.

Firstly D came down with a nasty flu earlier this week and now the hotel we had planned to stay at in Filey has been flooded.

But we are going to soldier on despite this and have booked up to stay in Whitby a day earlier (you can see the view from the hotel on the webcam above - we'll give you all a wave!).

More news, pix (and hopefully sunshine) to come.

It's been a huge learning curve (and it's only the end of day two!) but the people are lovely, the job's exciting and we've already been for a few at our local, The Crescent, for a few debriefing pints.

The last few weeks at Manchester we're pretty busy and very social - I got to have two sets of leaving drinks! We're looking forward to hooking up with the Manchester crew later this week for our first cricket match of the season this Saturday!

Earlier, Aussie mate Tim and his lovely sidekick Julia visited at the end of May as part of their whirlwind Europe tour and we had a great couple of days exploring Cheshire (I showed them around Beeston Castle and Chester) and we also got to catch up over a few drinks - it's been almost three years since we've seen Tim since the Wedding in Sydney!

Congrats also go to Aussie mates Andy and Merilyn who are pregnant!

We flew in early on Wednesday morning, met up with Jayne's folks, and wasted no time in checking out two of Rome's most famous landmarks - The Colloseum and the Roman Forum.

We stayed in a great apartment in the Collina Fleming area of Rome, and it's got us all inspired for our renovations by its effective use of space and clean Italian design. But back to the sightseeing...

Next day we took on the Vatican. We missed out on seeing the Sistine Chapel as it was closed for a religious holiday but St Peter's Square, the Basilica and the 551 steps to the top of the Cupola were more than enough to amaze and delight.

Not content with that though we ended up walking down to by the Tiber to see the Castello; jumped on the manically-busy metro system and swung by the Pantheon; braved the crowds to throw a couple of coins in the Trevi Fountain; and had a quick stroll past the Spanish steps. D rounded things off that evening with the best Tiramusu in the known world at a local ristorante.

On the Friday we took the train to the Tuscan city of Florence and the home of the Medici was absolutely dazzling under the hot sun.

We took in the stunning views from San Miniato al Monte; crossed the Arno via Ponte Vecchio; marvelled at the Duomo; and got up close and personal with Michelangelo?s David at Galleria dell Accademia.

We then said goodbye to Pete and Sue (who returned to Rome and are still sightseeing in Italy!) and had a very quick stop at the Leaning Tower of Pisa the next day before jumping on a plane back to Manchester.

Aussie mate Tim arrives on Wednesday for a quick visit and then it's D's leaving do at the Uni of Manchester. Apart from Oz in December, we've no firm travel plans on the agenda yet - but Dubai or Tunisia's looking a possibility. Anyone got any advice for either of those?

Toronto is a pretty amazing city, spectacularly positioned on the shores of Lake Ontario (which looks and feels like a small ocean). While we were only really there for just under three days we did manage to pack in quite a lot of sightseeing and one or two first time experiences as well.

We took a ride to the top of CN Tower (one of the world's tallest freestanding structures), explored the downtown area, sampled some great food, wandered the city's subterranean PATH system, caught a ferry out to Centre island, did some t-shirt shopping, and saw french electronic duo AIR play at the KoolHaus nightclub.

Sounds like a lot eh? But the trip was definitely topped off with a daytrip out to the nearby Niagara region where we managed to see the mighty Niagara Falls from about every vantage point on offer. We walked next to it. Went underneath and behind it. And, in a first for D, flew over the top of it in a helicopter. It's an absolutely amazing place to visit - very touristy and over developed for sure but the scale of the falls and the sheer amount of water flowing over them is completely phenominal - especially when viewed from the air. If you have the means you should visit the place at least once (and especially given it is slowly but surely eroding away).

We also passed through the pretty town of Niagara-on-the-Lake and tried some ice wine at a local winery. Our feet are still aching and our heads are still spinning.

Our adventures continue next week with a quick trip to Italy.

I'll take up my new post as Digital Marketing Officer with the External Relations team at Salford at the start of June after almost three years at The University of Manchester. Why swap now you ask? It's a great opportunity to focus on Web 2.0 (blogging, podcasting, social software etc) but this time in a central admin role. It'll be hard to say goodbye to the great people at Manchester but I'm looking forward to working with some great people at Salford too (and it means I'll not be too far away from the lovely Jayne as well).

We drove over to Liverpool last weekend to get Jayne's new passport sorted out. She's now officially a Langlands when she travels abroad and to celebrate this and the new job we're off to Toronto in Canada over the May Day bank holiday weekend. It is a long way to go for such a short time but given our record in recent years it's a bit conservative really!

The weather continues to be glorious and we've been out and about exploring - this time the Wirral - a penisula near Liverpool. Hoylake beach was defintely the highlight - we walked for about an hour to get out to where the water was. It's a very surreal location. Just amazing and you really feel like you are on another planet. Hoylake has one of the premier sites for Sand Yachting in Britain, and is set to be the site of the week- long European Championships in September 2007 for the first time.

Pix from Toronto coming soon.

Mike the Micra has seen plenty of miles in the last month with trips to North and South Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire, Shropshire and even the Welsh Borders. We've seen Telford's famous Ironbridge (built in 1779), the spectacular world heritage listed Fountains Abbey, a former Nuclear Fallout Shelter at Hack Green in Cheshire, and the second highest pub in England in the rocky Peak District - that's just to name a few. Of course there has also been plenty of castle exploring too - Conisborough (which inspired Ivanhoe), Morten Corbet and Knaresborough are our recent favourites.

Our Aussie mate Merilyn also dropped by for a quick visit at the end of March and we caught up with Yorkshire pals, Kate and Dave, at the fantastic Yorkshire Scultpure Park for the first day of Andy Goldsworthy's new outdoor exhibition on April 1st.

It's amazing what a slight change in the weather and a bit of sunshine over here will inspire! Our first BBQ for 2007 is pencilled in for Good Friday.

Happy Easter everyone.

It's been a long time coming but she's finally nearing completion having incorporated feedback from her supervisor in Australia. We decided a change of scene might help get the work done so we drove down to Rhos on Sea in North Wales last weekend and had a lovely weekend soaking up the seaside air and poking around nearby Conwy Castle.

This weekend just gone we stayed at the posh Makeley Hall Hotel which had great views out over the Derbyshire fields. We even managed to have a look at a castle on the way home.

I sprang a bit of a surprise on Jayne at Christmas and booked us into a midtown hotel in the Big Apple for a few days leading up to New Year's Eve to unwind before we headed back to work.

New York was full of holiday cheer and while we only had three days there we managed to cram in more than a few famous tourism icons including the Empire State Building, The Staten Island Ferry, Brooklyn Bridge, Macys, The Rockerfellar Christmas Tree and of course, Times Square.

Along with wandering around being gobsmacked at the the awesome urban canyons formed by New York's famous skyscrapers, we also visited the moving memorial at Ground Zero, caught an off-broadway musical and checked out a few New York restaurants (including a great Ethiopian place called Meskerem in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood). You can check out a few pix from our trip here.

We flew out New Year's Eve and were somewhere high above the clouds for "a quiet drink" at the stroke of midnight. We hope you had a great New Year's wherever you were too.

Everytime D has been at a Bolton football match the team had either drawn or lost the game. This phenomenon had caused him so much distress he believed that he might be "cursed". Thankfully this was dispelled when Wanderers fought back from 0-1 down to win against Newcastle 2-1. Nicolas Anelka's second half strike for Bolton caused scenes of delerium and celebration not seen since the Swans' 2005 Premiership victory at the MCG. All in all it was a great day!

Our visit to the Reebok came after a relaxing Christmas Day in Hawkshaw where we drank and ate a little too much, watched plenty of Christmas telly, and spent time with family. No snow this year but plenty of good cheer.

After almost almost 10 weeks of back and forth between solictors the contracts were finally exchanged today and we became offical owners of our groundfloor flat in West Didsbury (well technically the bank did but you know what we mean)..

We've already got a few ideas for refurbishment but they will have to wait until after Christmas."