I am a list writer, so it was a pleasure for me to sit down with pen and paper and make a list of all the places I wanted to visit and work out how many we could fit in to our 12 weeks. On the Simple Savings forum I had picked up a tip about making Scotland the arrival point in the UK, to avoid travelling up and down, thereby saving on travel costs. So I made Edinburgh our starting point and mentally clicked that this might be the opportunity to fulfill one of my dreams, to see the Edinburgh tattoo. I made a note on my check list. From there we would visit the Lake District and visit Beatrix Potter' house and the home of one of my favourite poets, William Wordsworth. The lakes scenery is among the best in the world, so this was a definite. From here across country, west to east to the coastal town of Whitby. I had visited here as a young child and had my first encounter with a real life seahorse (funny the things that stick in your head). The ancient cobbled tiny lanes and underground rooms in this town are amazing and resonate with its history of secrets and smugglers. Near to Whitby is the home of the TV show, Heartbeat, so I would visit there to take photos for all the fans at home.

From here we would head further into Yorkshire, which is the home of 4 of my sisters and Tom's brother and sister. We would make this our base, staying with my second youngest sister and put up our feet for a wee while. I also wanted to head across to Wales so I put this on my checklist as I know my second eldest sister is familiar with the area and might be able to go with me for a day or two. I knew hubby wanted to visit Germany with his eldest sister, too, so this could be an opportunity for him to go while I visit Wales.

London, Stonehenge, Bath, Devon and Cornwall were also added to the list and then I turned my thoughts to Europe.

I have always wanted to see Paris and Rome, so these were my obvious choices. I knew my daughter and her family had these two cities in their plans and thought maybe we could do at least one of them together. I decided I would learn the basics of the Italian language as I already had a smattering of French from school, so I put languages on my list.

I could see now that I was going to have to draw the line soon as this could turn into an exhausting experience and not the enjoyable one I wanted it to be. Hubby's brother had asked if we could accompany them on their annual visit to Spain, so I needed to include this somehow, too. By now I had my list of more than a dozen official stopping off points and knew there were many more than that with all the family members we wanted to catch up with. Plus the daytrips we would inevitably be doing along the way. So I put down the pen and turned to the computer to begin researching places and costs. This was the fun bit...