Never have I had such an amazing backdrop to write my blog before. I am sat on the balcony of our cabin onboard the Carnival Glory cruise ship which is docked in the Carribbean at St Thomas. The sun is setting and I am facing the most beautiful harbour lined with sailing boats and houses scattered on the hillside. Steven's mum Carol booked us the cruise as part of her visit and so we are very lucky to be able to tag on some Carribbean islands to our list of places we have visited around the world including the Bahamas, St Thomas and St Maarten. We have a very short amount of time before we will land back in the UK with no job to go back to, a recession and most worrying of all, a very small bank balance! But has it been worth it? Absolutely. It doesn't seem so long ago that I was panicking in Hong Kong because my bags had been left at Heathrow! But it feels like a lifetime since I have seen my family and friends. My little brother has grown up, evident by the words he uses in his emails to me that I cannot understand and I think i'll barely recognise my little nephews, especially Matty who has probably exceeded my 5ft height by now! One of my friends that I have known since I was four years old has had a baby boy so it will be strange to see him when he is 9/10 months old already. But I guess that's all part of going away for such a long time.

We are both looking forward to our final stop in New York where they will be getting ready for Obama to take over the presidency so it should be a pretty exciting time to be there. And my mum doesn't know what date I arrive back home so i'm really excited to suprise her - ill let you know how it goes!