an autodidact meets a dilettante…

follow the thick blue line

I’ve been working desultorily on a number of blog pieces which I’m struggling to finish, partly because they’re hard work but also because the excitement and stress is building for my maiden voyage overseas, not counting my barely-brain-developed boat-trip to Australia from Southampton aged 5 – memories include a camel train on the banks of the Suez, being rescued from drowning in the ship’s pool, and being befriended by an older kid which mainly involved being chased around the decks a lot. So from this day forth I’m devoting this blog to the trip, lots of short sharp and shiny shite, around 500 words daily, though I’m unlikely to keep to that limit, seriously.

So I’m not yet packed and wondering about the Aus$ which they say is rising and that’s good for OS travel. I’ve been described – though only by one person, my travelling companion – as a Scottish mothpurse and my main stressor is definitely $$$$ – sadly I don’t have the symbol for euros on my keyboard. I think the recent rise means cheapie flights but ours was paid-for long ago. The current Aus$ buys .68 in euros and I’ve no idea whether that’s good or bad or better than it was, whenever was was. Anyhow nothing to be done so let’s change the subject to my moustache. I thought it’d be a fine frivolity to grow one for the trip, something Frenchy and chic and daft, but after about four days’ growth it’s looking more Hitler than Charles Boyer, who was too chic to sport a tache anyway, and besides I’ve never liked them. At least my hair’s grown salt’n pepper with age, and seriously short on pepper, so it’ll be prominent as frost on a silver dust bush, and a change is as good as a haircut so I’ll leave it growing for now.

I’m at the frantically seeking advice stage. Got my first-ever passport – had to become an Australian citizen, which made me feel like a fraud come congratulations time – money-belt, international connector thingy. Downloaded Skype for myself and my travelling companion (though I won’t be using it, having no friends and family), had it explained to me that Messenger through Facebook is the cheapest form of communication – would desperately love to have an extra TC, aged about 13, to keep me straight on smartphone technostuff etc. Told to wear stockings on the flight, against DVT, which I may not, and have found hopefully the right advice against aerosynusitis, aka plane brain, which had me folded over my seatbelt on a recent flight to Melbourne. Still have to photocopy my passport, do some house-cleaning and catfood-buying for my house-sitter, and other things I can’t remember. My mind’s blanking out unpredictably so I’m sure to stuff something majorly up, but my TC’s coming over tomorrow to help with the packing and share the stress.

Okay the itinerary. A 14-day cruise or thereabouts down the Danube-Main-Rhine from Budapest to Amsterdam, after which a two-night stopover and then a train to Paris for a week’s stay on the île Saint-Louis, the walls of our cosy pied-à-terre lapped by the Seine, plus ou moins. Then down the tunnel and two nights in once-swinging London, and then, hurly-burly done, back to the serenity and quiet contemplation of home. On verra.