The day is finally here! The weather Gods are with us today as well: nasty snow-rain-hail thing: no qualms about leaving the cold north

Mario efficiently took 30 minutes to cover the coffee table with his modest pile of stuff yesterday. I went for option number two: hiding the much larger computer table with a ton of clothes, shoes and other things vital to my survival, that I thought I’d might perhaps possibly want to bring… I assume all men reading this are rolling their eyes and nodding in a knowing way. Yes I am a woman. If I could, I’d like to bring my entire wardrobe where ever I go. I cannot help it. However – good news! After hours of thinking, the pile has been whittled down to a reasonable size (it has Mario’s stamp of approval). Now to stuff it into the backpacks, and hope they’re not too heavy.

I made the eye-popping discovery yesterday that the domestic flight from Honiara to Gizo has a weight limit of 16 kg(!) on your luggage. 16!! Guess we’ll have to leave some of it in Honiara while we’re in Gizo, since there is no way I can keep my luggage under 16 kg. Jemma’s family has, unbeknownst to them selves, just volunteered to be luggage nannies.

Naive travellers that we are, we thought we’d be real clever and use our option to check in online 24hrs before departure, so we’d have supah seats for the 22hr haul across the globe. Being a bit caught up with the packing (i.e. I tried to limit my gear and Mario was watching Scrubs), we remembered the online check-in one hour after it opened. Bye bye, excellent seats! Now, we have sorta decent ones instead.

We leave in 2 hours, so a bit of a last minute rush here Now, to finish packing, then empty fridge of items that might develop fur while we are gone, do the last dishes, turn off the water supply, unplug umpteen electric appliances, and manage to get to the airport. Yep, that about covers things right now.

Sayonara, winter people!