Farewell tour

At the moment I seem to be on an endless farewell tour of friends and family. It's quite a painful process, saying goodbye each time, not knowing when I'll see them again. It all seems so very final. At the weekend I'm going to be visiting (and saying goodbye to) two of my closest friends, and that's going to be extremely hard. I also have another close friend who lives in Italy, and I don't think I'm going to have time to see her before I go. I just don't seem to have the time to do everything I have to do before the off.

My mum came to visit at the weekend and we blitzed the house, redecorating bits and bobs, taking stuff to the tip and giving it a marathon clean and tidy. She left with a car stuffed with our things, but there still seems to be a lot left behind! I've got to get into sorting paper in a serious way. Brilliant. On the plus side, my colleagues are loving my free giveaway of books, clothes and perfume!

My husband is now settled in our new apartment, which seems very nice. It has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and is in a compound with a great gym, cafe, restaurants and several swimming pools. It'll be all the better when I've shipped out some of our personal belongings so that it becomes "ours". He's also started his type rating, which is very hard work, but at least it's keeping him busy.

Hopefully it's less than a month now until I'll be out there with him. I can't wait, although the next month of endless goodbyes will be horribly sad, and I know that I'll miss everyone terribly when I've left. Bittersweet, indeed.