Just two days to go now before John, Helen and I leave for Kashmir. I’m travelling down to Heathrow by train on Thursday morning, in time to catch the overnight flight for Delhi with them, so am hoping for no delays on the trains. We all hope to be much less tired this time with a direct flight rather than stopping off in Dubai. In fact, we will only be in Delhi for two or three hours so should be in Srinagar in time for a late lunch on Friday. I’m planning a decent length of run on Thursday morning before I leave in the hope that this will mean I sleep on the flight, though that might be optimistic!

We are still awaiting our holiday documents, after Indus’ printer decided to protest about the amount of material we wanted copying for our information booklets for the trip but they should arrive today. At least, Martyn points out, Harlow isn’t far from Heathrow if Yasin has to deliver the tickets to us by hand!

My bag is looking worryingly full without any clothes, as yet. A field microscope, a couple of books, and a selection of quadrats, colour matching charts and collecting bottles seem to have eaten up a lot of space.

On now with the all-important job of ensuring that the garden and my allotment don’t look too much like a jungle when I get home. That, and popping into work to borrow a temperature probe to fill up yet more space in my bag….