Now it's getting serious

I've just sent the blog address to lots of friends and colleagues, so I thought I'd better write something! It seems very arrogant to assume that anyone is going to want to read what I write, but at least it's a way of recording my thoughts, and sharing them with anyone who is interested, at the same time.

Getting everything sorted and ready to go would have been difficult enough without having to spend hours listening to the particularly irritating "on hold" music that mobile phone providers use to entertain their customers - I wonder whether I'll ever get it out of my head! At the end of it all I only had a quarter of the data transfer limit that I'd been told I could have originally, so I'll have to watch out how big the photos are that I post. If I'd had a "Blackberry" I could have had 3GBs - pity nobody told me that when I told the chap at the shop why I wanted the phone!

Packing is a challenge - not the clothes, I'm going to a warmer climate (hopefully!!) and things can be washed out in hotel basins. But it's all the STUFF. I can't survive without a few detective novels, and even pocket guide books take up space, as do mobile phone and camera chargers, etc! Then I need both something waterproof (the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain!) and more optimistically a sunhat and sun screen. I'm packing a few more things so that I can have a change of clothes when Roger comes out to join me for the Compostela bit. Trouble is with that and what I'm taking with me when I go off on my own, I'm running out things to take for the first few days of rest, reading and reflection in the French cottage.

I think I've tied up most of the loose ends here - at least I haven't had to do what medieval pilgrims did, and arrange for the disbursal of all my possessions in case I die on the journey. Apparently you set a time limit, after which you could be assumed to be dead! That would be a bit dodgy these days with all the airport delays - fancy coming back and finding your wife married to someone else, when you'd just been stuck in Terminal 5!!

Anyway, must go and finish the packing.