Do you REALLY need to take that? (Yes.)

Less than a week before departure, and the eve of Eurovision.

Even though this is without any doubt what we want to do, it’s about now that all the worries have started to kick in. What if we have too much stuff? What if we don’t have enough stuff? What if I get rabies? Will I lose touch with my friends? Should we have learned how to fix our bikes? I won’t wear jeans again for ages, how do I feel about that? And on and on.

We’ve been getting some good rides in this past week, but even though we’re feeling much more buoyant about our capabilities, there’s a slight concern about getting up the ferry ramp at Dover. We’re now doing some equipment shakedowns. We knew the tent had a slight hole in it, but we now can’t find it to patch it up (slightly worrying,) panniers are good to go, the stove seems to work and we have everything we need. Richard has discovered that I’m taking a pocket shower (non negotiable) because if we wild camp I still need to wash my hair. I also may have accidently thrown out most of his socks.

Ferry tickets are booked with DFDS, which sounds like we’re travelling by sofa. By our next update we will probably be on our way, starting with a beer tour in Belgium. What could go wrong mixing beer with cycling?