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Witness my delight... my passport safely back in my grubby paws, complete with one Indian visa!

Now we're cooking with gas.

Having had my fun with the visa authorities, it's the national train company's turn.

I suppose I wasn't really surprised to learn that you can't just book a train journey online in India as easily as you can here. Well, to be fair, it would be easy if you had an Indian mobile phone number and bank account or American Express card. Because that's what you need in order to use the official online Indian rail reservation system.

You need two codes to activate your account with the official site - one sent to you by email and the other by text message (hence the need for the Indian mobile). The workaround for foreigners is that you have to email a copy of your passport to the official lot and ask them to send you the text code by email instead. This is all apparently to thwart ticket touts. Once they send me this, I can activate my official account. But, without an American Express card, I still can't use the official site. There is, however, always a way... us non-Amex-bearing foreigners can use an online agency called ClearTrip, who sync up your official account with your account on their site, and you can use a Visa card. So, in theory, I'll be able to book some train tickets soon.

Having explained all of this to my boyfriend, who, as readers of previous posts will know, has lived in India for several years, he replied: "No, you don't do any of that. You go to a travel agent when you get to India, tell them what trains you want and they send somebody round to the station to get the tickets for you. Costs a few rupees and that's the end of it."

I suppose the benefit of booking ahead is that you're sure to get the trains you want and you get your electronic ticket there and then. I'm sure I'll do a mixture of both once I get there - and, of course, once I know where it is I'm going!

Grover

I've given the impression thus far that I'll be travelling alone next year - except for the stints with Nigel. It's not strictly true. My travelling companion has expressed an interest in adding his own thoughts to the blog as we go along. Meet Grover...

He's a pretty intrepid wee chap, and always up for an adventure. Here he is doing a spot of kayaking on the River Dart earlier this year.

Below... enjoying a summit in north Wales recently...

He's been everywhere, from the summit of the North Africa's highest mountain, Toubkal, to the beaches of Southern California. He's not much of a one for writing, but he's keen to keep in touch with his pals around the world, too.

A word from Grover:

Hey everybody. It's Grover. We'll soon be offski, man. There seems to be a lot of fussing going on about furniture and flights and bits of paper and jabs. Not sure what all that's about. Sure am glad we Grovers don't need to worry about all that stuff. There aint nobody stickin nothing in my arm, I tell you that right now. Only thing I'm worried about is I hope they have Pizza Hut in India, man. Grover out.

Freegle eagle

Moving on to a new phase in life inevitably involves moving out of the previous phase. I find myself ensconced in the mother of all clear-outs. It amazes me now just how much stuff I've dragged along from place to place over the years. You'd think that, having lived in different towns - and even countries - over the years, I wouldn't still have a file full of old 35mm film negatives, or letters from old boyfriends. But I do.

Or at least I did. The recycling bins have been full for weeks.

I have now sifted the contents of my life into three piles:

• Coming with me to my boyfriend's in Cumbria
• Going to Ireland for storage
• Going to the charity shop or other forms of disposal

This last category is the one that has occupied so much of my headspace over the past weeks. My new friends are Freegle, the noticeboards in work, Gumtree, and UKClimbing. Gumtree is great, because it's free to list and sell things on there, as a contrast to the now-high fees charged by eBay. And UKC has been great for selling some climbing/walking gear. But it's Freegle that tickles me the most.

If you haven't heard of it, it's a free site where you list things you either want to give away or which you need. I've re-homed quite a few things on Freegle now, and the great thing is people come and get the stuff. You don't have to take it anywhere.

Selling/giving things away on these sites brings you into contact with a fascinating range of people. There was the dedicated computer enthusiast who came to collect the very old laptop I offered on Freegle. Took me back to my days of working for an internet service provider. And then there was the woman who couldn't come for my other old computer on the pre-arranged night, because she was left feeling floored after her elderly neighbour was knocked off his bicycle. We texted back and forward over the next week or so and she arrived to collect it one evening. Lovely woman. Then there was the guy who'd just moved to Blackpool from south London. He bought a chair. He wore a black beanie and a black sweater with 'London Boy' writ large on it. Then there were the people I never saw... the ones with whom it proved impossible to arrange a mutually convenient time, for whom I simply hid the items in various places outside my flat!

All great fun, albeit a bit time consuming. On the odd occasion when I have to go to the tip with something that genuinely is rubbish, I'm always simply stunned by the perfectly re-usable items that people are hauling up the steps to the skips... not least pieces of furniture that generally look better than what I've got in my house. Instead of a run to the tip, it'd be just as easy to drop it off at a charity shop. Or, better still, Freegle it - then you don't have to run anywhere.

I'm now in the middle of a last-ditch attempt to sell a few remaining bits of furniture. I'm hoping that St Catherine's Hospice shop in Preston will take whatever's left. They even come with a van and get it.

A shot in the arm

I dropped into my doctor's surgery on the way to work today, to see about making an appointment to get my travel vaccinations.

"How long until you go? Six weeks, did you say?" The receptionist looked horrified. "Oh, well, we'd better get you in to see the nurse as soon as possible. How about now? We've had a cancellation."

Long live the NHS. Within minutes the nurse was scanning various online resources to figure out all the jabs I  needed. Happily, I've had several of them for previous trips, but, even so, it's a fair old list. She had a few in the fridge and gave me one in each arm to get things going. Hepatitis B and Japanese Encephalitis. I broke into an immediate hot sweat. I've no idea really whether it was the contents of the vials or the thought of it. Anyway, after a ropey few hours, I was fine by lunchtime.

I've to go back next Monday for rabies (well, the vaccination against it, I should say) and the second batch of one of the others. And then more the Monday after that. Some of these run as courses of several shots, all needing different intervals. I'll have to work out how I'm getting the last two shots, as one is due while I'm in Ireland for Christmas and the other after I'll have moved to Cumbria.

Maybe next time I'm in I'll ask about a vaccine against bureaucracy...

The famous Indian bureaucracy

My boyfriend lived in India for many years. He's a person who has a knack for seeing the most efficient way of doing things - and who cannot see why you'd do things the hard way, when there's an easier way. For this reason, I often wonder how he survived India with his sanity intact.

He's often told me that India loves chaos - a good fuss, paperwork to shuffle, a drama or two to liven up the day. He can produce countless specific instances of this, and I've always listened with amusement - for one thing, because he's the embodiment of the middle England (in the best possible sense, with a dash of benevolent colonialism), but also because I felt the chaos was part of the mystique and charm of India.

I've now had my first direct experience of Indian bureaucracy, in the shape of my visa application. It took me a few nights of research to check how to do this, whittle out all the various agencies offering to do it online, and find the official one. Even the FCO, on their website, appear to have the incorrect web address listed for the 'real' Indian Embassy/High Commission. Then it took some more reading to figure out how to fill the form in.

The worst bit, unexpectedly, was getting the photographs for the visa application. There is a full webpage of specifications for this, setting out everything from the size to the exposure. I was doomed. How does everybody else who goes on holiday to India manage? I concluded I was taking this too seriously. The classic Brit abroad can manage this. Surely with my Master's Degree brain I could sort it out. The first problem is that they require two 50mm x 50mm photos - not the standard passport size. Where on earth would I get those? The answer turned out to be as simple as the Preston Post Office - thanks to a tip from a colleague who's been through this a couple of times.

I turned up at the photo booth. It felt like I was about to take an exam. You know how you sometimes bring about your own worst fears by trying to avoid them? I was so paranoid about trying to get the photos right - with my head in the right position, occupying the right amount of space in the photo - that, of course, I got it wrong. The booth showed me how the photo would look... looked fine... selected that one and a few seconds later it dropped into the collection slot. But the top of my hair was missing. This is a specific no no on the page of requirements. It hadn't been missing when it showed me how it would look. Anyway, that was my first £7 attempt. So I tried again. Another £7. I figured I'd cracked it. But on looking at the pics before sending the application off, I noticed that the edge of the booth was showing in them. It had crept into the edge of the pic because it's much wider than a normal passport photo.

I've no idea how picky they'll be. If they send it back, they send it back. Anyway, I posted it off by Special Delivery on Friday, and despite my lack of confidence that it'll work first time, I had a sense of achievement - another landmark... my first visa for my travels.

First visa... my mind immediately raced ahead to all the others that are to come. Is it too late to get my job back?!

It must be real!

So, it's really happening. I booked my flights for India tonight. And suddenly it seems real. I must really be leaving my job in under four weeks. Otherwise, why would I now be the future occupant of seat 19 on a flight to Delhi on 15 January?

I've also now arranged my first volunteer placement, which will be in either Delhi or Jaipur. I'm starting with just a three-week stint, to test the waters, including a few days of cultural immersion and language learning. I'll be assigned to an as-yet unknown project that's helping women build a sustainable income. I'll hopefully be able to do something to assist (or at least not hinder) for half the day, and then teach English to disadvantaged children for the other half. (You could argue that they won't be any less disadvantaged after learning English from a Northern Irish person... in fact, my very middle English boyfriend stares at me incredulously when I mention having taught English in France for a year while a student.)

At any rate, I'm under no illusions about who will gain the most from this short stint of volunteering; it will undoubtedly be me. If all goes well with the placement organisers, I'll use them again to arrange some longer placements later in other countries they operate in.

I'll arrive in Delhi ten days or so before I'm due to start the cultural and language programme, and the day I get there I'm hoping to board a train bound for the hills - to Shimla, to be exact. And after a few days' chilling out at this colonial hill station, I'll make my way on to Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama, and from where I'm hoping to have a few good leg stretches into the hills. What better introduction to India? And then back to the bustle of Delhi...

Now, I wonder has my furniture caught anybody's eye yet on Gumtree...

The grand plan

It's just over five weeks until I leave behind my flat in Penwortham and my job in Lancashire. I visualise my car, packed yet again with my stuff, as I set off for Cumbria on my last day here. It doesn't seem very long since my car was last packed with my stuff, arriving here, but it's more than two years ago.

There's a lot to do between now and then. All the usual things that go with moving, like sorting out the utilities. There'll be more 'getting rid' than packing up, which is even more time consuming in many respects. The local Oxfam shop will be sick of the sight of me! Some furniture to sell and give away; a few bits to move to Cumbria and a wardrobe going on holiday to my friend Frederique's house in Darlington, to be retrieved at some future point when I've a bigger abode to put it in. I get to be 'white van girl' again! (Is the stuff really worth what it'll likely cost me to rent a van and move it?!) And then there's another category of stuff, which will also be treated to a holiday - in my sister's garage in Ireland, where it, too, will await a future reunion if aforementioned bigger abode materialises.

And, of course, there's all the planning for my travels, which you'd think would be further advanced than it currently is. Not a single flight booked, not a vaccination had nor a visa applied for. I haven't even booked my boat home for Christmas! Instead of sitting here writing this, I should be doing that. But a fair bit of the research has been done and here's the vague grand plan:

Mid Jan - head for India. About a month's volunteering (likely in Delhi), and a month's schlepping about in the north west. It'll hopefully involve a desert trek, some sightseeing, plenty of train journeys, Varanasi, and probably also a visit to Shimla.

Back mid March for a month or so, to spend some time with my partner and do a ski trip together.

It may be South-East Asia for the next two-month stint - Cambodia's high on the list. Or Africa - likely Ghana and Tanzania. The African countries I'd actually want to visit are the Congos, but they're not really on the tourist trail... at least not for diminutive wee hussies like me who've never been to Sub-Saharan Africa.

After another month or so back in the UK, the plan is to set off with my partner to travel by train from Appleby to Beijing, via Mongolia, on some combination of the trans-Siberian railways. Once his three weeks of annual leave are up, I'll continue on by ferry to Japan and spend a month there, before returning to China to explore the Yangtze River by boat. That might be a more logical place to slot in a visit to South-East Asia.
Then another spell at home before a couple of months in South America, exploring Chile and Argentina... deserts, mountains, the end of the earth, and wineries. Can't wait!

Then I'll go to South-East Asia or Africa... whichever of the two didn't get slotted in earlier.

Now, about that ferry to Ireland...

And so it begins...

Jacking your job in... what an evocative phrase it is. The stuff of dreams on a Monday morning. So full of wondrous, endless possibilities. No more 9 to 5 grind. The world suddenly at your feet. Or the unemployment queue.

But, having procrastinated for years, I've finally done it. I've jacked my job in. If you could see smiles in typeface, you'd see one now on my face! My last day at my desk is around 21 December 2012. I plan to head off out into the world and see what's there. I'll be spending 2013 travelling and volunteering abroad, mainly by myself, and accompanied by my boyfriend during his annual leave. After two and a half years based in Preston, I'll be leaving Lancashire behind and moving to Cumbria, as my new home in the UK, with said boyfriend.

Bonkers or inspired? Time will tell.

Interestingly, though, no one I've told so far has said I'm insane... all I've heard is, 'I'm so jealous!' My subconscious reminds me they won't be jealous when I'm out buying a red lamp if it all goes wrong! Yes, leaving a steady job in the north west of England in the current economic climate doesn't immediately strike you as a sensible thing to do. But then neither is going to your deathbed with regrets. And, as the saying goes, I'd rather regret something I did than something I didn't do.

So I hope you'll come with me, virtually at least, as I plan and head off on a new life of Cumbria and the world.