The journey begins . . .

This is Boofle . . .

Some very good friends of mine gave him to me as an early 30th birthday present. The reason it's early is that I will be spending my birthday away from home.

Boofle and I are off to Waterberg in South Africa for a safari on horseback. This promises to be a holiday of a lifetime and I can't think of anywhere i'd rather be to kick off my 30s. When I get home I hope to back-blip some memories and I suspect that Boofle will be muscling in on as many photos as possible (he seems to be a bit of an exhibitionist), so look out for him!

So far I've been in Heathrow's terminal 3 for about 2 hours and I haven't heard the words 'ash' or 'cloud' even once. Let's hope the few problems that there are are resolved quickly and everyone can get where they're going safely. We've got a couple of hours and a G&T to kill . . .