8 days and counting...

Time is ticking away rapidly now, with only a few short days left until holiday kick-off time. I don't think I'm over-exaggerating when I say I'm as excited as a mad cat in a box.

The villa has been booked for a while but we're still effectively homeless for the last 3 nights of the trip so that's my task this weekend. Oh, and there's the travel insurance to arrange too. And the airport parking. And thinking about it, I haven't bought any sandals yet either. Our preparations are going better than usual!

Mr Fiennes' is happily engrossed planning his Floridian birding tour and has filled the house with maps, bird guides and small scraps of paper - each of these with odd sounding place names scribbled on, crossed out and scribbled on again. It's a work in progress obviously. He quietly waited until his new DSLR camera arrived last week, before telling me he'd bought it. I so enjoyed listening to the long-winded reasons (very possibly pre-prepared) behind why he'd purchased it, that I didn't have the heart to complain. That and the fact that he doesn't know just how much I'm going to spend on my new pair of sandals!

My immediate plans for the trip revolve primarily, around doing as little as possible for as long as I can get away with. Hopefully, my biggest worry will simply be whether I can take the pool cover off on my own on a morning! If desperate, perhaps I can ask the two smiley gentlemen who appear to inhabit the villa's dock for help? http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/Florida/Naples-Area/holiday-house-Isles-of-Capri/p17580.htm

On the off chance that I get bored getting in and out of the pool, I have purchased a book entitled 'A beginner's guide to kayaking'. To say that the photos were taken roughly in the same year as my birth, gives you an idea of it's ilk. Unfortunately, the written instructions just make matters worse and my idea of an eskimo roll is very possible worse now than before I perused the book! There's always fishing I guess...?

Now, I cannot tell a lie when I say that I am looking forward to the food in Florida and my current healthy eating phase is directly in preparation for this. Along with trying the local stone crab, alligator and of course, the ubiquitous Key Lime Pie, we're making a special foodie side trip. As Fans of 'Man vs Food', we're heading up to Sarasota to visit Yoder's restaurant, which specialises in Amish home cooking and in particular, pies - I can't wait! http://www.yodersrestaurant.com/Restaurant.html

Right, I'd better do something constructive otherwise this trip will never happen! Lx