Almost ready.... - Feb 27, 2008 - Bunbury, Western Australia, Australia

Tomorrow morning we will drive to Perth. Whatever isn't packed now, we will have to do without!

There has been so much to do, preparing to leave home, work and school for 3.5 months.

In the past couple of weeks we've all had haircuts, and been to the dentist. I've cleared the pantry of anything that might grow weevils while we're away, emptied the fridge so it can be turned off, paid all the bills, cancelled the papers. I also had to finish reading Deltora Quest Part 2 to Mark so that we don't have to carry a heavy book with us - we had to read extra chapters whenever we could, and finally finished it tonight.

We will spend two nights in Perth, staying with friends. Allen has arranged to attend operating theatre on both Thursday and Friday afternoons. We fly out on Saturday morning. The weather is predicted to be hot, around 40 C in Perth the next few days. I think we will spend much time at the swimming pool. We will spend Saturday night in Sydney before flying to San Francisco. In SF Allen will attend the meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons - a huge gathering of about 40 000 orthopods! After a week in SF we will fly to New York, where we will stay with relatives of mine for 4 nights. I believe the minimum temperature in NY is around - 8 C at the moment! Hard to imagine in this heat.

Then we fly to Italy where we will stay for 11 weeks.

After that Allen will fly back to Australia and the children and I will stay in the UK for a week with my cousins.