So busy here that I've barely had a minute to think about the upcoming adventure.
Suddenly it dawns on me that I don't even have luggage.Steamer trunks are apparently no longer de rigeur on the cruise ships which is disappointing.
The Tinker (father of dgr) and Podge (friend of father of dgr since they were thirteen, now both eighty-two and you'll meet him in Bugle Boy ) are well advanced in preparations to the point where they have kit laid out pressed and ready for inspection, have sorted out ship boarding passes online and are now busy with plane seating arrangements. Thank goodness they thought about dollars weeks ago and nabbed those greenbacks for us while the exchange rate was good.
They caught me dashing in to have my lunch in the Tinker's very handy town centre bijou apartment this week and sensing my fraught and frazzled demeanour sat me down and suggested I browsed possible activities whilst we sail around the Caribbean.They were trying to decide whether they fancied the climbing wall on the ship or the Scuba Diving at the Stingray Sanctuary trip. No end of cautionary Steve Irwin tales from me seemed to deter them.
So there I was trying to decide whether to go snorkelling off the coral reefs around Grand Cayman, or check out the Blue Mountain coffee plantations on Jamaica and suddenly it dawned, only three more days at work, three days to get sorted and then we're off.
We've checked out my stateroom with private balcony online and it looks sumptuous, and the cabins down in the bilges don't look too damp for the olds.They've perfected their Irish dancing (look out, that Flatley chap) and have promised me they'll check out where the ship's hospital is as soon as they have been piped aboard, slung their hammocks and stowed their kit bags.
Meanwhile I've been on a shopping trip to purchase crucial last minute supplies, headphones for the iPod and another memory card for my camera.
I'm going to have what I think is a sensible rest from the blog for a couple of weeks and it will be good to recharge my batteries with poolside reading in readiness for a concerted attempt on the Booker Prize longlist on my return.I shall keep a written journal because my brain has now become attuned to some daily writing and I don't think I could manage without it, so there will be shipboard happenings and holiday reading to share with you on my return.
It was only on reflection and a bit of an audit that I realised I'd posted at least daily for the last year, sharing my thoughts on about 150 books and authors in that time, as well as bringing you news of life in rural Devon.But it's all an interactive two-way process, 840 posts have elicited 3755 comments and according to my site meter,162,000 page views, so thank you to everyone for stopping by and if you visit but have never commented please don't hang back.Failing that e mail me off-blog, lots of people do. I love to hear your reactions to the blog, how it has related to your own life and I always reply (eventually!)
It all seems incredible when I only started it because I was fed up talking to myself about books.
Meanwhile leave a desk empty chez dgr scribbles and someone fills it, so Offspringette is stepping into the breach, change is good, she's looking forward to meeting you all and I know you'll all be nice to her.
Expect to get a twenty-something view on life and books, far superior photographs to mine, the occasional whacky and clever bit of computerised MP3 gizmology as befits a BBC trained person and doubtless memoirs of greyhound bus trips around America, skateboard trips around Australia, how the didgeridoo practice is coming along and everything else in between.
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