Midnight and arrived at the cottage

We're sitting here in the porch listening to the constant chirpy drone of crickets, cicadas or whatever other nocturnal beetle type thing is making the noise. We arrived about 15 minutes ago in the pitch black - I was quite pleased that I managed to pull the rather unwieldy pontoon boat alongside the dock with relative ease after almost 2 years of not driving it. We got the bags on the boat and unloaded fine, although it was starting to spit with rain a bit. Not sure if it'll turn into proper rain or not - hopefully not, but even if it does, as long as it's not too windy it'll still be great for fishing tomorrow.

The island is pretty dark at the moment so I haven't had the opportunity to admire the handiwork of the local builders we got to put a nice wooden dock down and shore up the back of the island which was eroding a bit. I think they've also done the boathouse but I'll have to wait until morning to see it.

I was taking my shoes off in the porch and noticed a rather large frog sitting on the floor staring at me. In hindsight I should have taken a photo of it but I just scooped it up and popped it outside. Anyway...here are a few pics from the office my mum was working in today...62nd floor of a building in Downtown Toronto. You can see it was rather hazy in Toronto today. Usually you can see all the way across Lake Ontario to the US.

I'm in Toronto

I arrived safely in Toronto and met my mum who's over here on part business, part pleasure. Am at the office she's in at the moment and just doing a quick post before we head over to the cottage. Trip over was great - I got upgraded to business class and my bag was literally the first one off the carousel. Had a bit of a doze on the plane and watched Kingdom of Heaven - not a bad film actually.

Anyway, will post more later, and hopefully pics from the cottage.

Ken

Here I go...

The day has finally arrived and I'm 15 minutes from leaving. The taxi gets here then, and my flight goes at about 11. I can't actually quite fathom that I'm heading off and this will be the last time I'm in England for 3 months. It's a beautiful day here in London today - sun shining and no clouds to speak of.

Can anyone who's checking this regularly do me a favour and when the final Ashes Test Match is on, leave a comment on the latest post I have done updating me of what's happening?

Cheers!

Ken

4 days to go

Well, it's almost time to go...Yesterday was my last day at work and culminated in drinks for all the trainees (future and just passed). Was a nice evening, but the bar we were at was tiny, so a number of us ended up sitting outside rather than being squished in downstairs. Went for a nice Indian meal afterwards and said our goodbyes to each other as most of us won't see each other for at least 3 months.

Today mostly consisted of errands, as will tomorrow...a bunch of things to do before I go off, but on the whole I'm just about ready to go!

Here are a few photos from last night:

Rakesh and Richard

Shash and Rakesh

Ilona and Bertie "Baps" Giovino

Red-eyed devils towards the end of the night.

Just testing out my camera and pic uploading

Let's see if this works...













































Apologies for having to turn your heads to the left to see the first two photos, but I forgot to rotate them before uploading. That's the view from my office into the atrium - see the giant swinging water sculpture. Last one is my desk.

Ken

Last minute preparations

Well, the time is almost upon me when I set off on my 3 months of unpaid leave and start travelling the world. For those of you who don't know my itinerary, I'll put it at the bottom of this post. I'm frantically getting everything together in preparation for my departure on Tuesday. After our burglary 2 months ago, we've finally got the insurance claim going through, so I have managed to get my mobile phone replaced, and a shiny new iPod to keep me sane on the 18 hour flights should arrive before I go. I've bought myself a new digital camera that's fairly compact and relatively inexpensive to take on the trip with me, and I will be doing my best to upload some pictures to this blog as and when I manage to get to an internet cafe along the way. Packing has not yet begun, and I anticipate a rather frantic few days.

Tomorrow is my last day at work before I start my leave, so I've been doing all my packing at the office to put in storage until my return. It's quite incredible the amount of crap you accumulate over 2 years, or even just 6 months for that matter. I got my new business cards through the day before yesterday, and they say "Solicitor" on them. It's still not really sunken in that I am now a fully qualified lawyer. Probably won't until I get back and start work again.

My flat is slowly but surely nearing completion, but won't be done before I head off. My mum is going to have to put the finishing touches to it, and hopefully it will be fully functional by the time I get back. I'm getting very excited about the trip - I'll have a fair amount of time on my own to enjoy the travelling, but I will also be meeting up with people I know along the way. First off, hopefully, Andrew and Valerie at our summer cottage in Ontario, then Connie, Amanda, Kate, Aylwin and the Toronto crew when I get back into Toronto on the 6th September. May be seeing Karen for a quick coffee or something in Seattle, then Gabi in Ushuaia, Ginny in Wellington, Amanda (again!) in Christchurch, Jade in Melbourne, and finally Jim in Sydney.

Anyway, it's a rainy evening in London and I've got to get my stuff together to go up to the flat with mum so we can go over what needs to be done.

My Itinerary:




30 August - London - Toronto

Driving over to our cottage and staying there until the 5th

5 September

Driving back to Toronto and staying with my sister

6 September

Meeting Connie, Amanda and co in Toronto

8 September

Flying to Seattle, hopefully meet Karen for lunch or something.
Driving up to Vancouver and staying there for 3 nights.

11 September

Driving over to Revelstoke BC to visit relatives

15 September

Driving back down to Seattle

16 September

Early flight to Lima, Peru. Staying there for 1 night.

17 September

Flying from Lima to Cuzco. Staying there 2 nights.

19 September

Tour up to Macchu Picchu for a few days.

21 September

Back to Cuzco

22 September

Cuzco to Santiago, Chile. Staying there 3 nights and doing a few tours - wine tour and trip to Valparaiso.

25 September

Santiago to Punta Arenas, Chile. Staying there 1 night.

26 September

6 day tour to El Calafate.

1 October

El Calafate to Ushuaia. Visiting Gabi and staying 2 nights.

3 October

Ushuaia to Buenos Aires. Staying in BA for 2 nights.

5 October

BA to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Staying in Rio for 3 nights.

8 October

Rio to Wellington, New Zealand. Staying with Ginny for 5 days.

15 October

Drive down taking ferry to South Island, staying in Christchurch that night.

16 October

Starting a 6 day tour of the South Island.

21 October

Back to Christchurch, seeing Amanda. Staying 2 nights.

23 October

Christchurch to Melbourne, Australia. Staying 1 night.

24 October

Driving to Port Fairy and staying 1 night.

25 October

Driving back to Melbourne and staying another night.

26 October

Melbourne to Ayers Rock, staying 2 nights.

28 October

Ayers Rock to Cairns, staying 1 night.

29 October

14 day tour down East coast of Australia terminating in Sydney.

11 November

3 nights in Sydney, visiting Jim.

14 November

Sydney to Cape Town. Spending 12 days touring around wine area, garden route and a safari.

26 November

Cape Town to London.

28 November

Start back at work!