STILL IN RAMSBOTTOM - Phil

Meg has relocated to the hills of Essex and the county town of Wickham Bishops. The cats have also flown the nest. I am alone in 5 Bank St, Shuttleworth, Ramsbottom. I am the king of our deserted castle. I survey the surrounding vales and hills, and await the enemy, silent and deadly. I will take no prisoners.

In fact, I await the father of the landlady, as he is inspecting the property in order to return our deposit. We hope he glances over the scratch marks that adorn their leather sofa, the torn muslin curtain in the bedroom (again, the Cat's handiwork), and the burnt rubber marks on the wooden floor in the bathroom. We hope.

I have one day of work left. That's tomorrow. Then after a final heroic game of Foobar in the evening, I will also be jaunting southwards towards Wicky B. Thereafter follows a week of chaos and relaxation. We will be sorting out our money, our insurance, our backpacks, our post-redirection, our debts, and other apparently important stuff. We'll also be seeing friends and family, some of which we won't see for quite a while. At least a few months.

Our plan is as follows: Fly to Auckland. Stay with Heidi+Kirby+children for a few days. Buy a car or van. Go to some nice places. Keep going until the money starts to run dry.

Our plan is water-tight.

It seems, on the surface, like nothing can go wrong. Everything seems to be accounted for - Phil, Meg, Van. I am sure we will have overlooked some of those important things but they always make themselves known sooner or later. We'll muddle through.

So I thought I had better start putting entries into this blog. We are taking Meg's computer away with us so can keep the blog updated, but also maybe buying a netbook which will be slightly more practical to use.
We have been doing lots of reading about New Zealand, but feeling slightly overwhelmed by all the possibilities. Our main aims are to see hills and lakes and oceans and mountains and snow and sunshine and stars. Admittedly, you could argue that all of those things are present in the UK (except mountains and oceans. And sunshine), but we have seen those ones and now want to see what they look like upside-down. In the photos they look great, and apparently the camera never lies.

I am sure over the next week or so we may come up with a slightly more advanced plan (whereabouts to go etc), but in the meantime we'll just assume we'll go everywhere we can.

So, 13 days to go.