I'm going to London!

Yes, I know, I’ve mentioned that a few times before 😉 but it became all the more real today, because I went and paid for the tickets! And what a scarily large cheque that was to write, even though it wasn’t my own money I was spending.

Of course, I gave the travel agent a book: Around the World in 80 Days by Michael Palin – she was really pleased with it, and agreed it was most appropriate 🙂

All the other planning elements are falling into place, too – I’ve almost finished putting together our presentation, lytteltonwitch has got a really good quote for some printing we need done (for a little surprise we’ve got planned ;-)), Dad found me a great daypack to use for my carry-on which fits the laptop perfectly, I’ve sorted out most of the books I want to take… there’s still a lot that needs to be done, but finally the done list is starting to get longer than the to be done.

Dad was in Christchurch earlier in the week. He had to bring his car up here to get something fixed that his local garage couldn’t do, so while they were fixing it, he had a couple of days’ holiday with us. Of course, this is Dad, so his idea of a “holiday” involved doing a huge amount of work in our garden, even going so far as to hire a skip to take away the massive pile of garden rubbish that has being growing behind the garage for years (one of the few real downsides to not having a car is that you can’t take stuff to the dump, and burning garden waste in Christchurch is seriously verboten, so what used to be a normal sized compost heap had grown into a bit of a mountain). We’ve been talking about doing that for about a year, but it was on the one day list, and we never seemed to get to it. Dad isn’t good at making one day lists – he just sees something that needs done and does it.

I was just glad I had to work, so I had a good excuse for not helping 😉 When I got home, poor MrPloppy was totally shattered!

A few recent catches:

The Snare of the Hunter by Helen MacInnes – a release from our Show Weekend expedition found a month later and journalled after another two months. And now on its way to Auckland.

A History of the United States by RB Nye and JE Morpurgo, a book that’s done a bit of travelling already, is now going from Victoria University in Wellington to Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. (This book is actually a great example of why no book is unbookcrossable: It was an utterly boring looking book, one of those academic softcovers printed in the 50s or 60s with just the title written on the front and no picture or anything – completely unattractive, and you’d think nobody would ever pick it up. Yet it’s been through at least three pairs of hands after mine (two of whom journalled it), and is off travelling again!)

And another book from the Wellington YHA, Flickan som Uppfann Livet by Johanna Nilsson, caught in Queenstown this time. That bookshelf has got to be my best release spot ever!

Currently reading: Duende by Jason Webster
Currently listening to: The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M Auel (still only on disk 17…)

47 sleeps to go!