“When Wine Calls”- Planning & Packing

#1 – Planning and Packing

Welcome back to “When Wine Calls”.

When we first started planning this trip, we were unsure how long we would be travelling. In many respects the trip has been governed by the ability to get airline tickets in and out of Australia. What started out at around 65 days ended being well in excess of this this figure, but we are really delighted with the outcome.

Our travel itinerary starts in London, then Scotland before heading to Europe. Along the way we plan to tick off an array of bucket list items with too many anticipated highlights to list here so you will just have to read our upcoming updates to uncover these gems. Many of the highlights will also, no doubt, be unexpected which will enhance the trip and provide many additional stories to share.

We are now only a few days away from departing but like with any trip there has been so much to do to get there in the leadup. We knew the first half of 2023 would be challenging for us with many family milestone birthdays, celebrating our wedding anniversary as well as a special Easter birthday weekend, involving several trips to Sydney, travel to the NSW Southern Highlands, as well as northern NSW. Our wonderful neighbours even kept asking when we were ever going to be home as we requested once again, they bring the garbage bins in for us.

In the past few weeks, it has been full speed ahead to tick off the enormous “To Do List’ prior to departure. Will we get it all done in time we have continually asked ourselves? I am not going to bore you with all the details on the “To Do List” (you all have been there I am sure) but one of the most significant and unexpected activities has been to remove all the non-essential advertising and marketing E mails we have unwittingly got connected to over the years and receive almost daily, to avoid being bombarded whilst we are overseas. It has been a real exercise unsubscribing from these parties over the past few weeks only to have them pop up again in a different address format to unsubscribe again. It is certainly more painful than the other almost daily ritual of blocking marketing and scam phone calls on your mobile.

We are now also at the pointy end of the challenging job of packing, a task Pauline and I despise with a passion. We are going to such an array of climates on this trip from the unpredictable weather of the Scottish Highlands to the summer heat throughout Europe so the difficulty has been what to take while avoiding having too many suitcases to take on the trains and planes, not to mentions the tiny hire cars we will be driving. The answer we have come up with (at least Pauline has) is to ship some of the warmer wardrobe home from the UK and top up with summer clothes when we get to Europe. Pauline is beyond excited at the thought of retail therapy as those that know her could imagine while I will go off sightseeing, find a great wine bar and leave it to her.

At this point, given that it is now 5pm somewhere in the world it is “Happy Hour” or as Pauline would say “Bubbles Time” so we are off to enjoy a wonderful wine and we will see you back shortly for the next episode of “When Wine Calls”.

Bruce & Pauline