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...