Today we leave the gravitational pull of E17, headed for base camp at Sharon and Eric's in High Wycombe. A flying visit home to Whitley Bay for me to drop off the car and, rather more importantly, give my family a final big hug, then we'll jet off from Terminal 5 next Tuesday evening. First stop is the Happy House hostel,"an oasis in the heart of Santiago", Chile, where we should be happily esconced by Wednesday teatime.
After a surreal 'preparational' year of redundancy and resignation, dry rot and damp, bogus builders and freaky freeholders, fruit flies and moths, leaky balconies and broken bicycles, decorating and dustsheets, which we have never tired of recounting at length, we're finally heading off on our slightly belated (by 30 years, in my case) gap year.
We've said goodbye to our fantastic friends and neighbours. We will miss you all dearly but will try to hit some of the heights of the past 12 months like Benstock, the Stones at Glastonbury, Kim's 50th and Space Speakeasy (see, it wasn't such an annus horribilis after all) and bring back more happy memories for us, and some sunshine for you.
