Goodbye St Margarets

 Deciding when to go

It wasn’t ideal having only 4 months to plan our year long trip – but sometimes you just have to grab these moments – Mark had no work, Jemima not yet at secondary school. Both my Mum and Mark’s Dad are healthy and well, it’s something we have been wanting to do for a long time – and sometimes it’s best not to think about things too much. LETS DO IT!

The most difficult bit was deciding which countries to go to, or rather which ones not to go to and so easy to be greedy about seeing and doing too much.  Even now I think we may have to pare down our itinerary. The deciding factors in the end were to make sure we are in NZ to spend the summer holidays and Christmas with friends, to be in Nepal for the best weather and to make sure we hit South America and particularly Chile when it isn’t too cold, and then we have to find space in there for a revisit to Mexico

Let’s start with Ethiopia, India, Nepal, Laos, Cambodia Vietnam , NZ! Australia, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico

To Do List:

• Find a loving family home for Pepsi (The biggest thank you goes to you lovely Helena and family)
• Rent our House (crucial as this is going to finance our trip)
• Find Someone to manage our house
• Find someone to manage my Clapham flat
• Find someone to look after my allotment – this is a BIG ASK – Kate you are a star! I will expect it to be completely overgrown when I get back, which is fine so long as I don’t get expelled by the fierce committee
• Get far too many jabs done – youch – surprisingly expensive!
• Dental checkups
• Get our Round The World Tickets – youch – expensive! Though at £3000 a ticket, possibly very good value for a 39,000 mile round trip
• Kids toy sales…. A little tricky to persuade them in the first place, but when the money kept rolling in £134 they got quite excited …
• Declutter house (this has been fantastic)
• Empty our house into storage – wow, the house looks great empty… Might keep it like that
• Get visas…  left that dangerously to the last minute.
• Apply for a low percentage credit card
• Hand our car over for a year long loan to Rox and Scott
• Squeeze in an arthroscopy knee op (got a quick 24-hr short notice one at the last minute, better that than wait a year.)
• Plan our travel kit and clothes… This has to be the absolute lightest & minimum – 2 rucksacks: 1 for clothes, 1 for stuff (mosquito nets, travel towels, electrical cables for all our gadgets, Medical bag, water filters, silk sleep liners etc…..) and horribly functional clothes.

To rucksack or suitcase?   Me thinks rucksacks are more practical; I also know I want 2 free hands for busy train stations (India in particular)

Goodbye St Margaret’s…