The Final Countdown (T -2 days)

Arkwright used to stand outside his shop of an evening in Open All Hours (topical reference for the kids there) and muse about it being a "funny old day". Well it's been a bit of a funny old week really. First there were the last days at work for both of us, obviously high emotion on my part at the thought of not needing to worry about emergency telephones on motorways for 6 months. Then came the moving out of the house and saying cheerio to our cats, and now we're surrounded by a mass of Gore-Tex and lightweight polyester and a couple of rucksacks wondering how the hell that's going to last us for our time away.

We've caught up with a lot of people over the past couple of weeks and enjoyed many a good meal and drink and as a result the fitting of all our new fancy kit is now a little tighter and more restrictive than it was when purchased. One of the main questions that has been asked though is "Are you excited?". To be honest we've no idea what we're feeling at the moment. We're both pretty shattered after the hectic run up to now and I don't think the fact that we're now not going to be doing any meaningful work (enter your own "when have you done any meaningful work" jibes here) until March next year and that we've basically got this fantastic opportunity to go and see some more of the world and hopefully find out a bit more about what we want from it has really sunk in. I'm not sure that it will on Saturday when we fly off from Heathrow and arrive in Halifax and I'm not sure it will in the first week either. It might take until the third week when we fly from Toronto and aren't flying home to make us realise that we're away. Don't get us wrong we're looking forward to this more than anything we've done, probably including the wedding, but it's such a strange feeling that it's not hit home yet exactly what we're doing.

So the plan from here is to spend the next day and a half trying to cajole our kit into our rucksacks, tie up a few loose ends and then make our way to lovely Terminal 3 on Saturday morning. We should be landing in Halifax just before 3pm so with any luck we should be in downtown Halifax enjoying a beer no later than 6! My birthday's on Monday when we pick up a car and head off into the wilds of Canada. For those wondering on the age I'm still in my very early thirties and will be 32!

We're going to try and post something on here once a week or 10 days and will put some photos up as well, if the weather is awful though we reserve the right to lie and not show any photos at all. Strap yourself in and here we go...

The final week's 24/7:
Jobless, Homeless, Carless. Bring on the travelling!

The Lakes (T -26 days)

Beth Orton once sang that she wished she'd never seen the sunshine so she wouldn't mind the rain. I don't think that's exactly how we'd sum up our farewell weekender in the Lakes, more like we wish we never knew that the whole country apart from one small section of the Lakes was bathed in 30° sunshine then we wouldn't mind the fact we were being buffeted by 30mph+ winds and rain. Not quite as snappy a song title granted but much more accurate.

So it was that we along with 13 other hardy souls, 3 kids and 2 dogs set off for a campsite somewhere north of Ambleside. Everyone left their respective parts of the country in glorious weather and all arrived to a campsite that looked like something out of a desperate post-nuclear war fallout documentary. Putting up tents can be a tricky skill to master when it is flat calm and the sun is beaming. When kite flyers decide that it's a bit too blowy for them you know that what should be a straightforward 10-minute job at worst is going to take a whole lot longer.

Everyone retired to the pub on the Friday night safe in the knowledge that they had a dry place to sleep that night.

The next morning dawned grey and miserable and the landscape slightly more barren thanks to the collapse of a couple of tents overnight. Thankfully none of our party had suffered that fate, instead a couple of tents had decided to stay upright but allow water in to create some delightful indoor water features, although I think the soothing qualities of a plunge pool at 4 in the morning are very rarely felt. With the forecast set to stay the same a couple of people decided that enough was enough and headed for the warmth of the south coast, or Newcastle! Those that still had tents that worked and didn't have to worry about small children and dogs decided to stick it out and in the end had a very good walk from Ambleside as apparently the campsite was at the centre of some very small weather system that only affected a 2-mile radius of this part of the Lakes.

What could have been a disastrous weekend was in fact a very good one spent with good friends sharing laughs, conversation, food and drink. The heady mix of fresh air, good exercise and a pint too many of Badger meant that there were a couple of fragile heads on Sunday morning but all gained for a good cause. A good way to start the beginning of the next 6 or so months.

The Weekend's 24/7 (24 hours summed up in 7 words):

Started wet, got worse, got drunk, excellent!