If you’ve read the About us page then you’ll have a bit of an idea about who we are and what we’re doing. In this post I (James this time) will expand a bit on what this blog will be all about.

First things first, none of us are writers. I once wrote a story called Days of Darkness when I was 13. It subsequently reappeared around 20 years later at my wedding (thanks Dad) and proved to be a quite terrifying insight into a troubled young mind. Clearly inspired by books I was too young to read it was an ultra violent, bizarre and disjointed horror story about a psychopathic hypnotist. Maybe I’ll post some of the passages in this blog. That short, troubling story marked the beginning and end of my career as a novelist.

So, like I said we’re not writers so we won’t be trying to show off our creative writing skills. Also, and you may have already noticed, I have no idea really where commas go, so apologies for that as well. What we really want to do is to provide an honest, informative and maybe slightly humorous account of the next few months – what we saw, what we did and how we felt.

Above all this blog will serve as a lasting record of our time away so that in years to come we as a family can relive the moments that come to define our trip.

Additionally a lot of people seemed very keen to follow and read about our journey so this is also for them. Whether you’re family, friends or work colleagues we hope this proves interesting and entertaining and gives a taste of what we experience as the year progresses. We’d love to hear your feedback.

Lastly and at the risk of sounding like a **** this blog is also for those people who might be considering doing something similar. If you’re having your own bad day at the office and wonder if taking your baby to South America for a few months is a good idea one way or another this blog might give you the answer. From our perspective we found other blogs very helpful even if it just made us believe it was possible to do this, and if we sow the seed in just one person’s mind we’ll be very happy.

In terms of what we’ll write about we have no fixed rules, we just want to get across the essence of the trip in terms of how it makes us all (including Amber) feel. Lonely Planet will describe the sights and smells of Rio, Buenos Aires and Montevideo far better than we will so we won’t be trying to write a travel guide. We will however tell you how we get on as a family, particularly from Amber’s perspective – taking a 16 month old travelling has prompted a number of reactions from people with words such as “brave” used to our faces and no doubt “stupid” behind our backs. So we’ll tell you what it’s like to travel with a baby, how we overcame certain challenges and how Amber develops and progresses as time goes on.

Aside from that I’ll probably talk a bit about running which I plan to do in every place we visit and Claire will hopefully add an international development angle, giving a bit of insight into local life, such that we get the opportunity to see it. That said the site, like the trip, remains very much a work in progress, so expect the layout, content and images to change as we learn a bit more about how the hell this all works.

If you’re still reading thank you for getting through the first post, your commitment is appreciated. Take care, James.