It’s getting real now –

we’re down to mere weeks until lift off!

It must be getting close now as the Mathematician has freed the passports from their ‘very safe place’ to a more obvious ‘safe place’ (in plain sight, so we don’t forget them ) and the lists are starting to take over the house.

These lists include:

• the list for the house sitter
• the list of ‘to-do’ jobs before we leave
• the list of people we need to send our itinerary to
• the list of things we must take with us
• the list of clothes required for a three month holiday
• packing lists, toiletries, accessories, carryon…..
• contact details of everyone we want to visit
• the list of everything I have to do before I leave

and thinking about it all just makes me feel overwhelmed.

I know it will all work out in the end but at this stage with a few visitors and trips to do before we actually leave, I’m feeling a bit arghhhhh!!

Which is why I’m retreating to blogging when I should be making lists, cleaning the house and doing something useful 🙂  You know I like to procrastinate don’t you??

I’m also wracked with guilt –  before I could write the word wracked I had to google it to make sure I was spelling it correctly.  Apparently you can write it ‘racked’ or ‘wracked’ so I’m glad I know that – see more procrastination 🙂

Why am I wracked with guilt?

1. I will miss my youngest daughter’s 30th birthday – there I’ve said it and she once wrote me this beautiful post!  I’m a horrible mother 😦  
2. I will miss my mother’s 80th birthday – I’m also a horrible daughter 😦
3. I will miss seeing my first grandchild expand in my daughter’s tummy – now I’m a bad grandmother-to-be too 😦  Don’t despair I will be back for the last month and will be in the country when it’s born, thank goodness 🙂
4. I will miss helping my daughter and son-in-law move into a new house (assuming they find one to buy in the next few months) – see I’m a bad mother 😦
5. I feel guilty for not having been to see my daughter and her fiance in the UK in 4 years!!  We’ve seen them in the meantime but only because they have made the effort to come home to see us.  I’m a bad mother again 😦 but I’m on my way to see them in 3 weeks so I feel good about this 🙂
6. I will not be able to blog as much or read as many blogs as I’d like to while I’m away, I know that already but I hope you’ll forgive me if I go missing in action for a while. I don’t want to feel like a bad blogger too!

I am trying to reconcile these feelings of guilt and I must admit to not doing terribly well!  Have you any advice for me?

Travel plans

Anyway we are busy making plans despite my feelings of guilt and not feeling terribly organised.  I’m busy pinning lots of posts about packing, locations we’re travelling to and things to see and do along the way. Not that useful the Mathematician would tell me, but it’s fun!

As well as seeing our daughter in England, we have plans to travel to Iceland, a cycling trip in Holland, friends to visit in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Scotland just to name a few places!  It sounds fabulous doesn’t it?  I am starting to get excited especially as it’s our first huge overseas trip as retirees and best of all there’s no need to return to work afterwards.  We’re away for three months in total!

I’m feeling quite confident we’ll get to see most of the people we want to see and we’ll enjoy the time with our daughter, her fiance, Bruce the rabbit and Ozzy the black lab puppy who is already nearly bigger than me and he’s only 5 months old.  We can’t wait to see the new house they’ve bought and help out wherever we can. We’ll be in the same country as her for her birthday this year at least 🙂 except she’s going away to a wedding on her actual birthday.  I can’t believe it’s coming up to 5 years ago I visited her for her big 3-0.  It was my first big trip on my own, I travelled solo for 4 weeks with just a few adventures along the way! The Mathematician was missed but I proved to myself that I could do it and live to tell the tale.

On another note: Voting is still open!

A beautiful blogging friend Angela from You are Awesome has been sharing her thoughts about a few of her favourite bloggers who have been nominated in the Annual Blogger Bash Awards – and this is what she wrote about me – I just had to share it!

Deb’s World has joy in its blood. With gorgeous pictures, and some very powerful reflections on both love and loss Deb shares some valuable wisdom from a glorious life. Deb is up for anything, and isn’t afraid to try what seems impossible. She’s great and definitely a Hidden Gem! 

Angela’s blog has been nominated in the Most Inspirational Blog category and she is thoroughly deserving of this award. She is sweet, kind and writes beautiful inspiring posts while always sharing others’ work and leaving fabulously uplifting comments.  So many thanks to Angela for her kind words and for being so thoughtful and supportive.xx

If you haven’t voted already then get voting! It’s so easy to do – click this link VOTING IS OPEN and select your choice in each category.  It really couldn’t be simpler. You can vote in every category but you can only vote once. It only takes a few seconds to vote.

If you feel like voting for Deb’s World in the Hidden Gem category, then feel free to do so and I’ll be eternally grateful. I’m up against some amazing bloggers but I’m just so pleased to have been nominated.  This is my first ever nomination and making it even more special is the fact that I’ll be attending the Bash in London with my daughter – all the way from Australia!

Voting closes at midnight on April 30^th (BST) with the winners announced on May 19th at the Bash in London. Thanks to the hard working committee for all their organising and to whoever nominated me in the first place, I’m just so honoured to be up for an award!

Apparently over 6300 votes were received in the first three days of voting – that’s amazing!!

Congrats to everyone involved 🙂

See you soon London!

Deb xx

You can also find Deb’s World here – let’s stay in touch!

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