Our travel documents arrived safely yesterday, I’m delighted to say, so tomorrow we are off.  Today’s job involved borrowing bits and pieces from work to measure soil pH and an infra-red thermometer which looks worryingly gun-like.

A gold star if you can guess what we’ll be using this for (clue – it involves rosette and cushion plants, such as this Androsace primuloides and Dionysius tapetodes.

Androsace primuloides (endemic to Kashmir)

Dionysius tapetodes (from Iran)

There remains the small matter of packing some clothes – thank goodness for Travelwash!