Ready, steady go!

Here I am, writing this last blog post from the 6.00 KLM flight to Schiphol. It's been a long 14 months of training and preparation but today has still somehow snuck up on me. I had my first butterflies yesterday but even now on the plane, reality hasn't hit me yet. We've lucked out on the seats on this first flight - maybe Karma ahead of a flight to Panama City that's longer than Lindsay's Bridgerton binge marathon. Like Bridgerton, I'm hoping to sleep through most of it.

My final week didn't go according to plan! Quality time with friends and family went out the window when Orla suddenly tested positive for Covid followed by Linds. The family moved out to Dunbar and I went into isolation. I'm not very resilient about being apart from the family. Making lemonde I managed to do an extra test run with the hamock - the Musselburgh local dog walkers got a surprise out on their stroll.

The taxi arrived at 3.25 this morning not long after I stumbled out of bed. Only slightly odd people (like me) are up at this hour. I was expecting the airport to be a ghost town but instead we caught the Magaloof rush hour and barely made it through security on time.

I'm so grateful to be here and have many people to thank. Family who have supported me. Friends and colleagues who have encouraged me. Special mention of course has to go to Linds who has done so much (especially this last week whilst unwell) to enable my mid life crisis. Strangely I'm not nervous at all, I do feel very blessed though. Especially with the situtaion in the Ukraine. Someone recently suggested that I remind myself why I'm doing this, and I was struggling to articulate it until I got the gift below from Bob and Theresa for my birthday.

"The best views come from the hardest climbs." Let's put that to the test. See you on the other side.