Finally done it – booked the tickets. We are now the proud owners of tickets to fly around the world (GULP!). Having handed in my notice, put our house up for rent and arranged to take Charlotte from school for a year, it made me nervous that we didn’t actually have a flight out of the country organised. But now we do..

Heathrow – Vancouver – 16th July 2003!

Vancouver – LA – 13th August

LA – Fiji – 18th September

Fiji – Sydney – 1st October

Sydney – Christchurch – 14th February 2004!

Auckland – Singapore – 14th March

Singapore – Heathrow – mid-May 2004

And the cost? A whopping £4,500, but still you only live once, and you can’t take it with you(I should explain that’s an England expression about taking your money beyond the grave, not about how much you can or can’t get in a rucksack)

So now I can stop worrying about that, and start worrying about the outbreak of SARS in Vancouver, how unfriendly customs can be to get into LA, whether Fiji will really be as nice as people say, what a car might cost in Australia, how to fill a month in New Zealand, and can the kids really hack it in SE Asia without us all going mad.