Can't see the forest...

...for the trees! Life is a blur. Bella has been spending more time with me lately and I have completely lost track of Blip and commenting. This weekend is packed, and on Sunday I have so many commitments that I don’t know how I’ll get through them all. I begin to feel a little anxious, and as the anxiety builds and I look at the calendar, I see that Sue and I have eleven days till we depart for the UK, where I fear we have planned to do too much and meet too many people. Maybe eight cathedrals, eleven ruined abbeys, and seventeen stone circles is too many. Likewise all the planned meetings.

I think we’re going to need a mobile phone to communicate with people as we go. I have read somewhere (maybe on Tripadvisor) that you can get a fairly cheap mobile phone in just about any city in the UK and buy time for it without having to have a contract. But where and how does that work? Can anyone fill me in on that? I had thought we could rely on call boxes on the way, but I’m reading that the call boxes are few and far between and not always reliable. Is that so?

I can drive myself nuts with What-Ifs. What if I get a migraine? What if we get irreparably lost in the Brecon Beacons or the Peak District, thinking about how much the petrol is costing as we go in circles down country roads with hedges on one side and stone walls on the other? I take a deep breath and exhale. It would be reassuring to know I can connect with people by phone while I’m there. And then there’s the question of Satnav. I’ve never used Satnav, but when I travel with my son and he uses it, I am astonished at how he can listen, look at the road, look at the map on the satnav screen, and carry on a conversation all at the same time. I am not good at multi-tasking, and I fear the Satnav will make me MORE anxious. We have good old-fashioned maps. We are good old-fashioned people, both of us. Maybe we will stick to the maps.

It looks like we’re going to have two afternoon Blipmeets: one in Staithes at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 6; and one in central London, probably at the Tate Modern (outside if it’s good weather) at 2 p.m. on June 13, which just happens also to be the day for Trooping the Colour. The possibilities for madcap comedies of error are not lost on me. Now is the time, should you wish to contribute helpful advice. Have at it!

With some trepidation I have added my email address to my profile so that people can contact me privately with phone numbers and whatnot.