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Lincoln and Grimsby were also special for me as they are the biggest towns in the area where I was born.

I haven’t blogged for the last ten days, nor indeed much this month. It’s been very busy, both in Hanoi and in the UK. Over the last few days Nga, Linh, Diep and Huy Duc have accompanied me on various visits throughout the UK. We went to Oxford, Grimsby and Lincoln and the group also went with Kara to Sheffield, as well as having many meetings in London.

We met representatives of Oxford University, Oxfam where we discussed climate change, and launched the Vietnam-UK academic network. The group also visited Sheffield University.

In Lincoln we met up with Gillian Merron, Foreign Office Minister and MP for Lincoln. We also saw our friends at Radio Lincolnshire and Nga and I gave an interview to Rod Whiting on the breakfast programme and met a couple of local companies, Castlet and Benoy. Both are doing interesting work relevant to Vietnam – Castlet producing pollution control equipment (some of which has been installed in Vietnam’s oil refinery) and Benoy are working on several architectural projects in Vietnam.

Then we went on to Grimsby where we had meetings with the Humber Seafood institute and Grimsby Institute as well as with the local seafood, logistics and ports industry and gave interviews to the local media, including the Grimsby Telegraph. This was a very interesting experience as Grimsby and the surrounding area is the biggest seafood and food processing centre in the UK and one of the biggest in Europe, and also has the biggest industrial port in the UK. There is much scope for cooperation with Vietnam, which will provide jobs both for the UK and Vietnam. And Grimsby Institute is keen to attract students from Vietnam.

Lincoln and Grimsby were also special for me as they are the biggest towns in the area where I was born. So I was very happy when we were invited to watch Grimsby Town play – and they won, thus strengthening their bid for Football League survival (visit Grimsby Town website).

Now my first challenge is to catch up on all the emails awaiting me on my arrival in Vietnam!

Here are links to some articles on BBC Vietnamese about our trip:

'Gặp đại sứ Mark Kent'

'Đại sứ Anh-Việt cùng gặp sinh viên Oxford'

'Bản sắc văn hóa Anh'

British Ambassador Mark Kent