Our lives for the next two months...more or less...or is that more?

We will be departing the day after tomorrow and today Doris, true to her usual relaxed approach to travel, bought her rucksack and most of her clothes for the trip. I, true to my usual uptight approach, purchased everything a couple of months ago. The completion of our “kit out” provided a great opportunity, so I thought, to line up all of our stuff, give or take a few items, in front of our respective rucksacks, thus demonstrating the meagre possessions that will be our lives for the next two months.

The blue rucksack is mine and the red one belongs to Doris. As you may be able to see, and much to Doris's amusement, the pile of stuff in front of the blue rucksack is a little (sic) larger than that in front of the red one. This is made a smidgen more embarrassing by the fact that I berated Doris for buying a smaller rucksack than she advised me to buy because she preferred the colour of the smaller one.

Now I know that I usually take too much when we go away, “just in case”, but I really did think that this time, with my rapier-like purchases of ultra-light, ultra-compact and ultra-expensive walking gear, I had got it down to the absolute minimum – obviously not.

I will have to reconsider. And that includes my copy of the new translation of Don Quixote, specially purchased to last the trip at close to 1,000 pages but unfortunately weighing in at just under a kilogram.

I will be staying with my mum tomorrow night, so tonight will be my last night at home, in my own bed, for a couple of months. Hardly going off to war but a little bit emotional nonetheless for a hopeless romantic like me.