This is a day I've been looking forward do ... I'm off to visit our Sanctuary in Ireland to meet the staff and donkeys. I'm travelling with Mal Squance, our Deputy Chief Executive, who will be meeting the new head of operations, Noel Carton.

Mal has travelled this route from Bristol Airport many a time and while she sailed through the security checkpoint, the alarm went off when I walked through the metal detector. After having all my luggage inspected I was then searched from head to foot before finally being given the all clear.

After boarding the plane, it wasn't long before we were heading down the runway and up in the air. I had a window seat, but for most of the journey there was nothing to see but dense cloud. Looking round for something to do, I found the inflight magazine and flipped it open and what did I see ... a photo of two donkeys!

It hardly seemed as if we had been in the air five minutes before we were beginning the descent into Cork Airport. We dropped out of the cloud and had a lovely view of the sea which looked very calm with a clear blue sky. How different to what we left behind us.

We booked into the Hibernian Hotel in Mallow, County Cork earlier this evening and will be driving to the Sanctuary tomorrow morning. Having never been to the Sanctuary before, I'm really looking forward to take a walk around and get a feel of the place.