Goodbye North Finchley, Hello New Delhi!!

Well it's been a total whirlwind ... about eight weeks ago my grandma passed away at the age of 99 and I split up with my boyfriend of three years! 

Nana was an amazing woman and a huge presence in my life and as for my ex, well he was a lovely guy, but I guess, just the wrong guy. 

However, both events left me quite devastated and out of that, so far, two positive things have happened: Firstly I have lost a ton of weight and secondly I am about to set off on a two month adventure around India!!!!

Why India? Well to be honest, I had been contemplating a few months off work next year to go travelling around Australia, or even South America. But then Claudine, a friend of nearly 30 years, called to say she had been made redundant, so was off to India for the winter and would I care to be her travel companion? (My expression was one of complete surprise when she suggesed India, as my lovely friend could be described as being rather neurotic and suffering from a bit of OCD. But she assured me that her issues with hygiene would be overcome and I wouldn't recognise the new calm and relaxed person she was to become.)

The general consencus after I discussed it with friends, family and clients was: 'Go for it!!' 

And so here I am, getting ready to leave on a flight to New Dehli early tomorrow morning and have only just finished packing my ruck sack - again. I tried it three times and finally accepted the help from a group of friends who managed to cull the amount of clothes and toiletries, so that I can now actually lift it up!! (Apparently it isn't necessary to pack 15 pairs of knickers, 20 pairs of socks, 4 bras, 10 t shirts, 6 pairs of trousers 3 boxes of Immodium, 30 sachets of dirolyte, 2 large bottles of hand sanitiser and a whole pack of toilet paper!!!)

The truth of the matter is, I am feeling incredibly nervous about the whole thing. My usual style is doing a package tour and now at the age of 45 I am finally getting to go back packing! HELP!!!!!!!!

But hey, I am just going to go with the flow.  Claudine and I have purposely only organised the hotel in Dehli for three nights, then we are flying off to Darjeeling to help out at an orphanage (and drink lots of tea). And from there on in, we are leaving it up to fate; trying not to be too organised and just seeing where we go ... something quite hard for a pair of control freaks to deal with I admit. But as I mentioned earlier, Claudine has assured me that her issues with hygiene will be overcome and that I won't recognise the new calm and relaxed person she is to become.

And so for now, I am going to sign off and try to get a few hours sleep before tomorrows expedition begins. I hope to be able to write this blog as often as possible and share my stories with you - both good and bad. I obviously will try to make it as entertaining as I can, I mean it should be interesting to see how we cope with the Indian way of life: the culture, the country, the cows ...  Especially considering one of us has issues with hygiene and the other suffera from IBS with a phobia of using public toilets!!!

Oh well, all I can say is: 'Watch this Space'!!

But  before I go, I just wanted to add; earlier on I mentioned TWO great things that have occured as a result from recent sad events in my life, but I now realise that there are in fact THREE. I cannot begin to express how moved I have been by my friends, family AND clients over the last few months for all their support and encouragement - and faith in me.?! I now realise just how lucky I am to have you all in my life and I don't know how to thank you enough. And so this blog is dedicated to all of you ... and nana x   

(insert pic of nana)