Finally I’m starting to get organised and what has seemed like a distant possibility is now all of a sudden a big reality. I'm part excited, part cautious and part apprehensive but am 100% convinced that this is the right thing for me to do. In the last week or so I have handed in my notice at work, rented out my house, (which was a bit premature as the agents were way more efficient than I had expected and found tenants very quickly) leaving me homeless for 3 weeks before I finish work. I'm not too fussed as I am a past master at sofa surfing and am pretty sure I can get away with it for three weeks.

No-one told me about exercise after immunisations and I wasn’t clever enough to work it out for my self so last Monday I had my second rabies vaccination about an hour before playing 90minutes of 5 aside football. This had strange side effects and left me feeling very weak and in serious pain for a couple of days. After my recovery everyone I spoke to seemed to think it was common knowledge that you should avoid physical exercise 'ooh you must have known that Mark'.. I must have missed something there! Not even the nurse thought it prudent to let me know, so i found out the hard way. Still I survived so mustn’t grumble!

I'm about to book my ticket now and have decide to get a one way ticket to Australia stopping in India for 4month and South East Asia for about 6 months. That’s about as rigid a plan as I have at the moment, I figured I could wing the finer details as and when I feel the need. Departure date will be 2nd/3rd October. So revellers will be partying in the street across the South of England celebrating my departure well in to November.

Anyway it hadn’t really dawned on me quite how many things there are to organise before going on such a trip, its almost inevitable that I will forget something pretty vital, probably arriving home to a court summons for missed payment on council tax for a place I haven’t been living or something similar. Still ill worry about that as and when it actually happens.

A friend (yes I have some!) Ennis has decided to come out to India and meet me for his two week holiday in October 'which is nice!' so ill have someone to ponce off for a couple of weeks..