So, we're off on Wednesday. Time for packing and panicing, but also time for one last day out.

Kentwell Hall has such great potential to be completely rubbish. It has given itself all the opportunities in the world to be bloody terrible; it holds costumed re-enactments of Tudor life in the grounds and house that is currently being lived in by a modern family. They have frescoes of their children on the walls and items of such horrifically bad taste strewn about the insides and occasionally in the grounds that should jar so badly with the period costumes and oddish bagpipe-like-things droning on in background...somehow they don't.

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So, I have a hammock, an OTT sleeping bag and some walking sticks. I'm sure the latter have a more fancy name than that but essentially they're walking sticks. Most importantly, however, I have my iPod.

One of the best things about all these preparations is that you get a new present in the post every day that you had forgotten you had ordered. Today the little extra was a map. I was so excited, I put together a little map of Italy to highlight the areas we had adequate mapping for, and our proposed journey. The mapped areas are enclosed in red boxes, and the proposed trail is in blue. The red circle around Rome is just multi map, it has nothing to do with areas we have mapping for. Please click to read more, and have a look at the map.

Oh boy, life is not set up nowadays for people to just move and who don't want to plan everything in advance. Hell, families are certainly not set up for it.

To read on, click below...or above...

Introducing the Hennessey hammock, the most interesting decision we've made during our preperations to leave and therefore proof positive of our eternal dullness. Instead of relying on a tent to carry our dreams safely down the spine of Italy we've bought two of these. Below are some of the reasons why we are not complete idiots destined to pay dearly for our folly.

Click 'read more' to, ahem, 'read more.'

Oh the wonders of photography! It's really enjoyable to get out with just a camera and nothing to do except document chaos. I suppose that's why a lot of people like doing it.

...more photos after the page break...

I am going to miss London. I was on a bus from Hackney this morning and realised that even through a steamed up window on a bus going through a part of town I haven't lived in for three or four years I could tell which road I was on and had a story about most of them. That's the problem with the big city. It is so huge when you first get there it seems almost impossible that you'll ever work out what's going on. Give it a few years and you've got the tube map imprinted on your mind and you know just where to go for a drink on Monday night. It's a pleasant fantasy, but you only have to look at the chaos that happens in a tube strike to realise that a lot of Londoners know one way to work, where the local chip shop is, and that's about it. All the story about knowing streets through bus windows really tells the world is that I've spend a lot of my time on buses gazing aimlessly into space.

Please read on...

When was the last time you stayed up all night? With work in the morning?

I know two types of people, the first is the kind who would never do this, never think about doing this, look at you oddly if you mentioned doing this, and if through some uncharacteristic display of weakness found themselves nursing another double whiskey as the sun comes up on the lock-in they'd been convinced into staying at by some wild-eyed maniac with nothing to do in the morning, they'd certainly be calling in sick. Probably in good time, and very apologetically.

The second type drink too much but are way more fun.

Read on if you care...

That's where we're from. Or something like that, it probably symbolizes it or some other such nonsense. We had an interview to work with these
guys today and we won't know if we have got the job for another couple of weeks, but a couple of their questions really drove home the fact that we're finally leaving and there's no going back. Do you have a mortgage or do you pay rent? We pay rent, and have already handed in our notice to our landlord, and we've done the same to our bosses at work, and we are genuinely sitting here like lemons with no job and no other plans, please employ us because no-one else would be daft enough to...

The guys interviewing us know a lot about Italy, and after the interview we asked them a couple of questions relating to our plan to walk down the country. Apparently it'll probably take about six months, the locals won't even know the best way to get to the next village and at some point at least the weather will be hell. There was yet further terror for the unprepared as we were almost gleefully informed that most maps in Italy were of absolutely no use whatsoever, and I got the impression that getting from A to B was more like a boxing match than a work of artistic navigation.

Thinking about it you probably don't want artistic navigators, but that's not the point.

I'm still looking forward to it!

There's more after the page break if you can stand it!

...There was a job and a flat and a stereo and a guitar and a lovely sauté pan.

That's where I am now. Julia came in half an hour ago in blind worry about missing her flowing yellow dress and french connection jacket. I think it's finally bedding in for her that we're getting ready to be on the off.

I, on the other hand, am busy compiling precise weight tables of what we're going to carry with us.

By the way, if you don't know - we plan to walk down Italy, all on foot, from the Alps to the straits of Messina for no better reason than why mountaineers climb. Although Julia still insists it's for the ice cream.

...Read more after the page break...