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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?!