Tickets, Money, Passport?

I've spent the evening listening to my records, packing and writing the following. I've poured the last of the Plum Wine that I bought at the not-blogged about but truly fabulous day out at Hatfield House Country Show and decided to post it at this late hour. God the internet is slow at this time of night!

Packing has begun already. I think that is even a record for me. There are piles of clothes, books and four rolls of camera film already cluttering up the dining table. I've written my packing list, things to do list and a last minute shopping list; because there always has to be a shopping list even if you're going to a place famous for its wonderful shopping. I've decided bags, jewellery and the occasional soft furnishing are what I'm after. The decision has almost been made to take a suitcase over a backpack. I know this trip was supposed to be, in a small way, a more adventurous affair, a hark back to the days when I backpacked around Europe with no money and no idea. But the thought of a backpack sends a shiver (though perhaps in reality a horrid hot sweat) down my back and I'd rather drag an impractical suitcase through the streets and shelter behind a large pair of glasses and wide brimmed hat. Take your pick which film I'm aspiring to with that look.

The pre-packing has actually been quite fun, I've been able to indulge my natural inclination for blouses and knee length skirts knowing that it's a cultural requirement to keep my old saggy skin out of sight for fear of offending the locals, on more than one level. Goodness knows what they'll think of an ill-fitting red bikini.

Choosing which music and books to take is always another dilemma. It's not that I don't have a million (potentially fabulous) books by the bed that I have yet to read, it's just you've got to pick the right one. Fortune smiled and I found that the copy of Hideous Kinky I'd acquired off the front of a rare buy of a Woman's Magazine many years ago means I have the necessary 'book set in the holiday destination' covered. The rule is if you're not reading one you need to buy one out there. So that's the reason I have Homer's The Odyssey gathering dust on my shelf from a long ago trip to Greece and why I was crying reading Angela's Ashes in Dublin. To top and tail Hideous Kinky (god I really hope I haven't read it and have just forgotten it) is The Two of Us by Sheila Hancock, one I've been dying to read for ages and Jasper Fforde's Something Rotten, which sounds like it might be fun and more importantly part of a series, something I know will delight my 'I've got the whole set' travelling companion Clare, should it turn out to be good.

Music is also a key decision too. Sadly because I lack this years, last years, every years must have music device that is really a bit crap but I want one anyway, I must pick carefully those cd's I put onto the mini disc. Who wants the soundtrack to their summer holiday to be ruined by a thrash metal band (I'm assuming I wouldn't like it but I'm prepared to be proved wrong) whilst relaxing in a Kasbah in the High Atlas? Zanzibar two years ago is full of happy memories of Venus Hum whilst lying on the beach and Shania Twain whilst lying in an approximation of an Eastern European brothel. A trip to Rottnest many years ago is Erasure and much of Europe 1988 was the Moonlighting soundtrack.... don't ask. New York however doesn't need a theme, it is its own film soundtrack. Pick a film, sing the song. Easy. This year I've got lined up David Bowie's London Boy, Just Because I'm a Woman and Coldplay's X&Y. I think Nancy Sinatra might have to come too, just to even up the gender split.

So that's clothes, music, books sorted or well on their way, what's left? Ah yes toiletries, makeup and jewellery. Will it surprise you to know I set aside time specifically on the 'to do list' to sort these things out? To ensure I don't over, or under, pack anything and have emergency supplies of everything. This could take me a whole morning.

Obviously it goes without saying I have already printed off addresses, phone numbers and directions of all our accommodation and dusted off the passport.

The truly bizarre thing is that with all this scary preparation type behaviour, I will still display many signs of chaos and panic and that's just in the suitcase. So much for beautifully pressed linen. Ah well who am I trying to kid.

I don't plan to blog whilst I'm away. I like the idea of being on holiday away from all distractions, though I don't doubt we'll be tracking down English newspapers whenever the opportunity arises. My journal will be *gasp* a journal, a real life proper hand written rather lovely leather bound book I bought in an extortionate fixed price shop in Zanzibar that has stayed pristine and gathering dust since. I rather fancy it to be my copy of Herodotus but that's me living my life in a film again.

I'd really love to get hold of my travel diaries from the big trip in '88/89 and for the purposes of my imminent trip to Morocco the pages that relate to that. I have some amazing memories and we definitely had some adventures. That's the beauty of youth, recklessness and relative poverty for you. Oh and a much braver, prettier blonde companion who took the brunt of the attention and let a much more naive skinny brunette tag along saying alternatively 'I don't mind, I'm up for it' to 'Do you think it's a good idea?'

The trip started in Paris and involved an over-night train to Spain, a lost camera, retrieval of lost camera back over the border, skinny-dipping in the lake opposite the youth hostel in Barcelona with a, um, young youth called John, being locked in said park. Catching a train to Madrid, being thrown off, sleeping in a disused train station, hitching a ride with a hippie and his son, eating pasta in the mountains with the aforementioned hippie and leaving offerings for the gods, playing ten pin bowling, heading down to southern Spain, sleeping on a building site in Gibraltar and in another train station in Algeciras, arriving in Morocco having formed a posse of about 9 slightly innocent travellers. Catching the train to Marrakech, wide-eyed at the sights, being taken to a Moroccan bath and being told to enter through a hole in the wall by a man we'd just met, being scrubbed whilst naked in a dark room surrounded by bemused (female) locals, meeting a man who said his cousin lived in Fes, being met off a train by a man called Michael whose cousin had said we were coming (!), staying with a man called Ahmed who liked my braver, prettier blonde companion. Hanging out with Ahmed who took us to the Mid-Atlas mountains and the horse races then drank whiskey with us from his own bottle behind the bar in a club. Spending the day in the medina in Fes, eating a truly amazing feast with the men who worked in the carpet shop followed by a slightly nervous nap before finally scarpering from Ahmed's place in the small hours giggling like thieves as his maid Fatma watched us with a smile. You know I really don't remember the rest of the trip back to London. Where is that sodding diary?

Now that was a digression, a sixteen year old one. *faints from reality of it being a lifetime ago.* One thing I do plan to do however is decide what on earth to do about this blog. To blog or not to blog. That is the question. You see it's not anything at the moment apart from a minor irritation. I love the idea of it but it just doesn't perform, doesn't do what I want and yet I don't know what I want from it. It can't be a true journal because people read it and it hasn't got an angle *points randomly at everyone else's blog* so either I move it, make it anonymous and keep it as an online journal for me. Which really does quite appeal or I make it interesting for people to read. Which really will be a challenge!

See you when I get back!