Tomorrow and tomorrow...off to Spain

A very scatty post as I prepare for departure tomorrow on this long awaited trip to Spain:

Preparing for a trip has never been so exhausting, and I cannot believe how much there is to do. One thing leads to another, and unexpected occurrences swallowed up huge chunks of time. It is almost midnight, and I am still working on my itinerary documents, and sorting out what to take as hand luggage. I asked my friends Nora and John how much luggage they take and they said one bag between them. I cannot rival that!  But I was impelled to be rather more ruthless, and have put away quite a few things. Although we are warned we might need a raincoat, mine is staying at home, and ditto the umbrella. I am sure that if it should rain, hundreds of African pedlars will sprout from the soil just to sell umbrellas.

Being an information junkie I need a dictionary, a guide book, and some reading. It is a very long journey, via Singapore, Malpensa, Barcelona and finally Seville, where the tour commences. The material supplied by the travel company weighs a kilogram, and what a pity it is that they did not arrange for it to be given to us all on arrival, instead of making us all lug it ourselves. There has not been time to have more than the most cursory glance at this brick. Selecting books has been difficult, as the ideal book needs to be absorbing, entertaining, and something that need not be taken back home. A very contradictory set of criteria.

The carer I engaged to come in each day to help Dr P came today and we went through the routine and she will be back again tomorrow to go through it all again. She seems a good and nice person, and competent. The grandson won't arrive until Saturday, but I cooked a lamb curry tonight and there is enough left for Dr P's dinner tomorrow night.  After that they are on their own. All his medications are now in blister packs, the refrigerator has been cleaned, all the bed linen washed and clean sheets put on all beds, and  a huge amount of tidying and labelling of things has been done (why did I use the passive tense here? I did it all, item by item.) We had a pleasant day together.

There are a couple more things to do on the computer and then I can stagger off to bed. This new computer has a wireless keyboard, which is tiny and you can delete only from backwards and not forwards. It would save a lot of time if I just left in all my typos, many of which occur because the keyboard is so small. I keep hitting the g and the f keys! The old computer, which had its logic board replaced a month ago, suddenly went PHUT again the other day, so it has gone away to be fixed yet again - fortunately this time under warranty.

Tomorrow I can allow myself to feel excited!