For the first week of our honeymoon we spent an amazing few days on safari in Tanzania. After a marathon flight in from New Zealand, and a day or two recovering in Arusha we were rested, revived and keen to hit the bush. Our first adventure was with our guide Freddy, to the Ngorogoro Crater via Lake Manyara National Park.
(Freddy and Michaela testing out the roof canopy on the Landcruiser.)
Lake Manyara was great - full of elephants, baboons and birds and with a hippo pool in its centre featuring a great host of different animals resting in the mud and the summer breeze.
Next stop it was on to the crater - a vast expanse stretching out towards the horizon on all sides, with an incredible variety and concentration of animals on the crater floor.
The next morning we were up bright and early to investigate what the crater had in store. We weren't disappointed - zebras, lions and a rare black rhino were all on hand together with more baboons and numerous gazelle.
Leaving the crater we woke on Christmas morning for an unforgettable Christmas Day - a drive out to our remote mobile tented camp (which moves to follow the wildebeest migration), featuring a strange mix of luxury and roughing it on the edge of the Serengeti Plains. Our tent was wonderful - even with a flushing toilet!, hot water brought for showers on demand and a daybed at the front of the tent with an uninterrupted view of the plains stretching out as far as the eye could see.
That evening Alex, the owner, surprised everyone with a special Christmas Day feast with dancing by warriors from the local village and a whole roasted calf killed earlier that afternoon.
The next morning we woke up to find the wildebeest had come in on the plains and we could see herds of them stretching for miles into the distance.
In total we spent 3 days at the camp, going on game drives to see the wildebeest and stalking the prey that were stalking them.
What a fantastic place and a great way to start married life.
Home for the weekend was a tiny little stone cottage inside the Peak District National Park, with the lowest ceilings I've ever seen (challenging) but with a nice log burner and a separate gas fire which made things toasty - in stark contrast to the chill air outside. Shaun found the kitchen ceilings the most challenging of all - even I had to duck which makes you wonder how those growth hormones have affected the human race over the last few centuries...
There was just enough time to go for a little explore into the hills - nice and muddy and a little bit of clambering involved but good to get outside into the brisk air and make a (token) start on some training for a bigger walk we're hoping to get done later this summer.
We had been looking around vainly for a place to visit in November that was close, relatively cheap and would give Shaun some chance of a suntan ahead of some wedding pictures in December. Seville was the place! 
Leaving London's grey skies and cold weather behind us we made the most of a beautiful sunny Saturday in Seville - wandering the old squares and swanning about at La Maestranza bull ring - one of the oldest bull rings in the world (no fights in winter, but you can go and sit in the stands and conjure up some atmosphere of your own). 
While the cathedral was built on the site of Seville's former grand mosque, in other parts of the city its earlier Moorish heritage is still very much on display. The Alcazar, used as a royal palace over the centuries, was originally built as a Muslim fortress in 913. Its gardens in particular are beautiful, as is the intricate stonework in Islamic designs. 
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