Feeling quite disorganised on my side of things. Still have to rent the house out so we'll have a small pot to supplement any savings. This weekend, I started The Big Clear Out, in preparation for The Big Clean. After despatching own bodyweight in shoes to the local Save the Children, I braved a look under the bed where I'd inexplicably accumulated 3 tents over the years. This is roughly one for each camping trip I've undertaken in the last decade. Clearly an upgrade-obsessive...must be down to many a childhood trailer-tent holiday in Morecambe.

As for the latest upgrade, still haven't yet managed to spend a night in Vera. Jon bought her in October since when we've endured the seemingly endless wet cold winter.... We are planning a night away in our closest campsite somewhere in Kent to do some 'snagging' - last minute fault-finding and remedying of fixtures and fittings. Better to discover lumps, leaks and squeaks in Sevenoaks rather than Albania.

On another ill-prepared point, I have yet to drive Vera, and in fact have not been behind the wheel of any vehicle since I sold my (much smaller) Mini in the 90s (and I had trouble parking even that.) I plan to overcome this drivers' block when I take over the wheel on the streets of central Roma...or maybe a quiet stretch of country lane in Belgium...

We are both learning rudimentary Italian too. Happily Jon's has passed beyond this point and he should now be able to converse reasonably well, albeit only in the current tense. Mine has stayed at the rudimentary stage, despite the 11 weeks intensive course at City Lit reaching its finale next week. I am practicing saying: Mi Scusi, ma non ho capito. A lot.