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Cheltenham, UK
Ok so admittedly this is a very hurried first entry to my blog! It is the morning of the day I leave and I am feeling a bit funny!! I still have a million things to do!
It feels like I have been preparing this trip for ages and I'm so pleased it's finally time to stop planning and organising and start doing and seeing...yey! I've had 12 jabs, collected several visas, and been regularly visiting the gym. Rob and I cleared Mum's loft, put boards down and I've slowly moved my stuff back home with a little help from Parv and Mum J I have read Bill Bryson's Down Under and learnt that my ultimate destination is " the worlds sixth largest country and its largest island. It is the only island that is also a continent and the only continent that is also a country. It is the driest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents". So funny! I am dedicating this year to getting there!!
I've been saving so hard that my family patiently accepted various items of mine as Christmas presents, I sold my car (after much drama and Phil coming to my rescue!), sold my bike, pyjama parties took over from nights out in town and after every visit to Cheltenham mum would send me back with a mighty food parcel!
Its taken lots of research to get my kit together, sleeping bags, torches, filters and thermals, tents, inflatable pillows and cameras. Not to mention getting all the smaller bits and bobs and trying to decide on three outfits from two wardrobes of clothes isn't easy!! Cancelling all direct debits and applying for bank accounts that don't charge the earth to use abroad, filling my ipod and plotting my route on maps for those back home! The less pleasurable bits included trialling malaria tablets, filling my ipod (technology is not my strength) and getting very bored choosing an insurer!
I've had some lovely send offs, often down to the domestic goddess abilities of Yasmeen and spent a lot of time saying farewell to my nearest and dearest. People keep asking me how I'm feeling and whether I'm excited but honestly... I have no idea! My head is ringing with checklists, final things to do, things to get, people to see and I'm dreading saying goodbye to my family this afternoon. Dreading it. But I think tomorrow, when I have no more goodbyes, no more lists to complete and whatever I've not done... well I will just have to leave...tomorrow I think it's possible I might go a little bit nuts! I can't wait!
So that's it for now chaps, I'm about to go on the journey of a lifetime, say farewell to my old life and beckon in a new one in a new world...wish me luck! It's possibly one of the biggest days of my life!
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