Paul and Tracy's Main Blog

After all the worrying of last week, Spunky has lived up to his name this week, at least, in relation to his age and health... Like most cats (including his healthy sister, Heffy) he sleeps a lot. But when he's not sleeping he's just as adventurous as ever, and follows us into the kitchen on the off-chance he might get some snacks, meouwing (more mile meuuwing) and rubbing himself up against our legs as he tries (mostly successfully) to get our attention. It was a relief that he maintained this state of alertness through Richard and Karen's visit yesterday, and as a result he's going to be with us for a while longer yet...

Before Richard and Karen came, we escaped for the weekend to visit Tracy's family in Haverhill. I managed to keep myself occupied by attempting to fix Konnor's bicycle, which I eventually did on Sunday morning, in order to avoid lots of goodbyes. I was a little too successful, though, and missed saying goodbye to Kerry, Mark and Stephanie altogether, as I'd popped to the cycle shop when they had to go... So, just for them:

"Goodbye, and see you in December"...

When I finally managed to drag myself away from the bike, it started to dawn on me just how long I am going away for. When you start saying that you'll next see people at Christmas, and it's only June, you know you're about to go away on a very long trip...

Richard and Karen coming yesterday hasn't helped my rising sense of excitement, either, as naturally our conversation centres on the trip itself, even to the extent of checking out some of the route on the maps. It's starting to feel real now!

My preparations are also kicking up a gear - the bike had its final pre-trip service on Friday (a big service as it's now done 24k miles), and Richard brought 2 new shocks for me to fit, as the standard service life for them is 30k miles so they'll need replacing during the trip if I don't change them before we go. With the bike due to be shipped a week on Saturday (4th July) I've still got a few jobs to sort out, and it has to go back to the dealers again as they discovered a slight oil misting from the pillion seal (on the shaft drive) which they replaced last December, but obviously need to do again (and they will, at their cost). I managed to get home from work early-ish today and fitted the shocks, in just 4 hours, so that's one less job to do.

Time really is ticking now, though, and this weekend will be our last weekend of peace before the trip, as the last 2 weekends are set aside for parties!. It's also our 2nd wedding anniversary on Monday, so we're heading off to the Yorkshire Dales to spend some quality time together...