Weeks

Five weeks. Five weeks until I'm flying to the northern hemisphere, to Denmark, Belgium, France, England and Ireland.

When it was months, no problem, but it's weeks, and all too soon, it will be days.

My sister is revving up; her family buzz off in, how did she put it? Oh, yes, thirteen sleeps. And she hassling me about stuff I have to do: money, will, transport, accommodation, the usual. Meh. Most of it's sorted.

But. There's that subtle, vague anticipation. The checking of websites to make sure I have all my research in order for the National Archives in Kew, the obsessive checking of currency exchanges - Kroner, Euros, American dollars and Pounds - thinking about the routes I'll travel...

I'm working up a final check list with things like turning on global roaming for the mobile, wireless internet, making sure there's enough food and medication for the faithful hound, copying all travel documents.

And now that I've got all that out of my system, I can go back to not worrying. It is, after all, five weeks before I go...