Current Mood: Sad & Happy

Times come for me to start trying to force everything into my backpack, more or less there now. I laid out the majority of stuff I am going to be taking onto the bed to see how much there actually is – I’ve surprised myself with how little I am actually going to take (especially compared to the girls :) ). I’ve stuck a picture down below of pretty much all of it, minus my boxers, socks, camera and Nintendo DS.

My sleep this week has been terrible and I have found that I’m still awake till well past 3am every morning just thinking about what I am doing. I’m going to love the trip I know, but I had security, friends and a life here which I’m leaving behind. I can tell it’s making me nervous as I have come out in a couple of spots, something that I don’t usually have to worry about! Typical eh… Went out for a really long walk today with my dog which was really nice, I’m going to miss him as well and I might even shed a little tear when I close the front door to him and mum when I leave – especially as squidge is totally unaware of me buggering off!

Well there ya go, bit of me from the heart. But I’ve told myself that I’m going to be brutally honest with how I am feeling on this blog, it’s going to be my reminder of everything I experience on the trip so no point lying!

Hey everyone, thought I’d just let you know that to leave a comment you now need to register as a user…  I think this can be done from inside the website, if not then just send me an email and I’ll add you on and give you a password.  Just I have been hit lately with a shit load of spam comments!  Not what I need when I’m travelling the globe :)

My first week of freedom has come to an end and my last full weekend in the sunny UK is looming.  All very real now, we got our passports back today so they have gone straight into the ‘important stuff’ file that I seem to have made up, got ourselves a telephone number for when we’re away now – if you want it, then give me a shout on the email and I’ll send it over.  Be warned though, in Thailand it costs 84p a minute to call up.  This drops to 12p a minute in Australia…  Weird eh!

This week has been full of quandrys, I mean, what do I have for breakfast?  Which side of the bed should I roll myself out of?  Shall I have a bath in the morning, or just skank it out until the evening???  Hmmm, life is hard…  Emma finished her job today, so she’s going to begin to face the same kind of dilemmas that I have – she’s a bit more get up and go than me though, so she’ll have mon-fri next week planned out to the minute! ha ha ha, bet I get a call to tell me I have to meet her at a certain time to go over, well I don’t know, but she will…

Monday coming I am snowboarding, obviously I can’t make it to the slopes this winter as I will be in Oz – so thought I would accompany Paul to the Milton Keynes snowdome so that he can get some lessons in before him and Suz hit the slopes in December.  He’s borrowing a lot of my stuff, so lessons will really help get him on his feet (pun intended :-) ).  Gonna be a good laff, although I’m gonna take it easy considering I have to stay in one piece for the flight next Sunday!

Right I’m off to watch some UFC and then hit the sack – busy weekend ahead of me!  Take care ya’ll…

Paul

In a months time we’ll be in Bangkok…  What a crazy thought and something that has begun giving me butterflies, not because I don’t want to go or anything stoopid like that – but because I really have no idea what to expect.  Loads of people have given me different ideas of Thailand, from some seedy backstreets filled with ping-pong firing women to a paradise where the sea is totally transparent and the beaches are out of this world – what do I expect, absoloutely no idea…  I’m just hoping that the first place we find has a hearty supply of loo roll and a toilet where you sit instead of squat.

Scatt is on her PADI course tomorrow so she will be well prepared to go diving for the ‘big fish’ when we get there, I’m hoping we’ll see some Whale Sharks while we are in Thailand as my Cuz-in-Law (can you get sucha thing) used to be a Dive Master and saw quite a few there.  Hopefully he’ll manage to get us some cheap dives as well not that they would be that expensive with the exchange rate at the moment!

I got the rucksack off Russ (the one he used to travel around with) and stuck in it what I thought I would take with me initially, turned it round and slung it on my back – it felt sooo empty.  So I tried to fill it and see how much crap I could take with me should I decide to ‘go prepared‘, the outcome, too much to actually lift the rucksack and walk around with.  I’d end up like Quasimodo if I slung that bag on my back full to the brim, I’m gonna stick to my original plan and take only a bare minimum…  Big thanks to Russell for the lend though, hugely appreciated!

Enough of me, I’m off to spend some time soaking in a hot bath filled with English Bubble Bath – gotta make the most of it while I’m here…  Laters!

We’re nearly at a month to go and everything seems to be approaching so quick, we’re still trying to get all the little things done such as cancelling various direct debits, the car insurance, mobile phones and all the other day to day expenses you don’t notice coming out of your bank – but we’re nearly there.

Emma and I are still awaiting the return of our passports which we sent off just over a week ago now, would of been sooner but our banks couldn’t get our statements to us for some reason (out of 4 posted, I received 1!).  We said we needed them by the beginning of November though, so a little while left.

Work is driving me a bit crazy at the moment, thought things would ease up the closer to my leaving date, but with new projects coming in quicker than we can handle them I feel sorry for the people I will leave behind – ‘specially James, he’s in for a rough ride if they don’t get someone in and quick.  I’ll try and get all my crap finished up though, I’m not one to leave stuff unfinished. 

Went and got Russells backpack from Emmas house the other day, so it is now officially ‘My Backpack and I’!  Going to try and work out where everything is going to go now – Pants at the bottom as they’ll be the slowest thing to come out the bag, I got a tip the other day that to save on washing you follow a four prong approach: Wear them once, turn them inside out and wear them again, turn them around (bums at the front!) wear them again and then once more with the inside out!  Sounds a good tactic apart from the fact we are going to Thailand first and I imagine that my belly won’t hold up too well there!

Right, gonna stop writing now, else I’ll waffle on forever – I only logged on so that I could set Lucy an account up!  Hope this doesn’t happen every time!

At last we have all got our finalised and paid for tickets through STA Travel.

Emma emailed Sean (My travel agent) and Liz (Emmas and Sarahs travel agent) to make sure that we all got booked on the same flights and stuff, but now everything is complete and I have received my receipt and travel itinarary from the agency. Total cost of the flights were £1197, which broke down as £376 of airport tax and £821 for the flights. Details of the route can be found on the ‘route’ page funnily enough.

Now all we need to book is the hotels at each destination for when we first arrive and the camper van within New Zealand and we’ll be well away.

Work is going to get my resignation shortly, so that should give them more than enough time to recruit me a replacement.  Don’t think Emma is going to bother until possible minute though!

Then we will be on the case for our rucksacks and all the gear we need to take with us, starting to feel real now!