Preparations

Well it`s four years to the day since I moved out to the woods in Oxfordshire for the first Ditch Monkey thing so it seems appropriate to be making the final preparations to move out to the Swiss woods now. Although thinking about it these are less of the final preparation and more of the first, I only decided for definite yesterday and I think if I had not announced the decision I would now be changing my mind. Never mind.

Today then I have been taking some unlearning to drive lessons, I have a driving test tomorrow and whilst I have motorbike licence and have driven cars, tractors, landrovers etc off road for years I have never taken my car test. My job in Switzerland requires me to have a driving licence so I booked 20 hours of lessons over a week with the test at the end. I was surprised to discover that there was something of a disparity between myself and the instructor on our opinions of good sensible driving. I have four hours of lessons today, my test tomorrow and I fly out to Switzerland on Wednesday. So what with packing, sorting out bank accounts, eating and the like there has not been much time to prepare. I did manage to go and look in a couple of shops today and have nearly decided on which hip flask to take.

I have also found my rucksack with all the outdoors kit in it and dug out anything that looks like it might be unsafe to take on a plane, lighters, petrol; that kind of thing. I do have a zip lock bag full of birch bark which is used to light fires with but I`m interested to see what customs officials will make of it should they spot it. So I suppose I`m just about ready, all I need to do now is go to the shops and get a goodly supply of PG tips, Marmite and Frank Coopers Oxford Marmalade (thick cut) and I`ll be ready for anything. Contrary to popular belief I do not have porters to lug a mahogany writing desk up the mountain for me so I`ll be taking a lap top and purchasing a portable solar panel.