That time of year!

Not just any time of year but nearly 12 months since our last overseas jaunt.

I did promise Elin's mother, Mia, that I would try to do my holiday blog just 6 months after the event. Unfortunately when I came to start writing it just didn't feel right so here we are once again, nearly 12 months to the day. As I've said before, it seems to make the holiday longer.

Becky bought me a new Moleskine notebook at Christmas, which is where I usually record our trips. I started to make a wish list of where we would like to visit but of course it is really just that, a wish list, as no way can we fit everything into our scheduled time away.

In mid February we started to give some serious thought to holidays. We had given up on the idea of a river cruise through Europe as we had left it too late to book but also we realised that it would take such a big chunk out of our time away. Much prefer spending our time with family and friends, but I would still like to do it one year.

Following several conversations with our Swedish and UK family, our plans resulted in an away time of just over nine weeks. We planned to land in Manchester as usual and make our way down the country seeing as many people and places that we could before heading for Stockholm.

We normally book through our local Flight Centre but friends Wendy and Rod recommended the Flight Centre in Windsor so at the beginning of March we made an appointment there. We had very efficient, friendly service and everything was sorted and booked very quickly.

One thing we were worried about was the sleeping arrangements when we got to Sweden. It didn't seem fair to kick one of the boys out of their bedroom just to accommodate us so we started to look for an Air Band B close by. Elin and Jim started to make inquiries in the area and found a number of apartments that would be available for the time that we were there. They found a very nice apartment about 400 metres from them so we will be taking these very nice people up on their offer. We had forgotten that at this time of year most Swedes are away on holiday and apartments are empty.

Lots to do, cars to pre.register, bills to prepay, papers to cancel etc.

So all finally sorted and looking forward to the trip, but not particularly the flight.

Watch this space.