Final countdown - Only One Week To Go

This past month has just whizzed by. With so much to actually get done I have barely had time to sit down and write about it all. Now, with only one week (almost to the hour!) before we leave, it's time for a quick update:

• All our 'memories' (old photos, letters, kids' art, etc.) are all packed and stored. I decided in the end that there just wasn't time to make memory boxes for the kids as I had hoped. Never mind, that will be an interesting and nostalgic project to look forward to when we come back home, together with converting all our old family videos to digital format for future editting.
• I finally got around to sorting out my old computer and transferring all the files to an external, portable memory. It amazes me just how much of your life (documents, photos, favorite music, etc.) you can fit in something the size of your back pocket!
• Applying for Lielle's passport is a work in progress. We're hoping it'll reach us before we leave as new arrangements in the British Consulate meant that it needed to be processed in Paris. Fingers crossed!
• The last couple of weeks has been a time for saying goodbyes to friends. I spent a wonderful evening with 5 of my dearest girlfriends. The intimate atmosphere of such a small group generated such good energy and I have a lot of exciting projects to look forward to with them on our return. A couple of evenings ago we held a farewell, sushi-making get-together for our Couchsurfing friends. I feel truly blessed to be part of such a wonderful community. This whole plan of ours for a year of travel and personal exploration would never have happened without it.
• One of the highlights of this past month has been learning paper mache together with two good friends - and making two new good friends in the process, Tami and Uzi, who run the course. Wednesdays mornings have been something to look forward to as, in addition to learning a new skill of making beautiful and useful items out of waste paper, spending a couple of hours in such an intimate and open forum amongst trusted friends is just so good for the soul.
• After some uncertainty, we finally received confirmation that one of my elder daughters, son-in-law and grandson will be taking over our rental contract and moving in to our house. The furniture arrived a couple of days ago and they should be moving in tomorrow. Although a little cramped for two families it's only for a short while and we all gain from it. It's the house where my daughter spent a big part of her childhood and she has fond memories of it. For us it means we have somewhere to store a few things which is a big load off our minds.
• I sometimes wonder just where my faith that everything will work out fine comes from. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts our trip is very low budget and even now, just a week before we leave, we're not exactly sure where all the funding will come from. This last month has seen a few interesting developments in that field. A chance conversation with my daughter-in-law brought to light that I should have received monthly child benefit for Lielle, which for some reason we never received since she was born. I checked in out, and sure enough, somehow or other we had fallen between the cracks and within just over a week my account was credited with the amount due to us over the last seven years! Also, looking through all my old paperwork I discovered that I was owed severence pay for a job I had 12 years ago - a couple of hours in two different offices was all it took to arrange the money owed me there. It turns out that there are millions of shekels owed to people who don't realize their rights. Definitely worth checking out.
• Although Dani has been working hard to tie up all the loose ends of his business it's becoming clear that he won't be able to join Lielle and I right at the beginning of the trip (the part where we travel from Greece to Bulgaria visiting friends along the way). The plan is that around 10-14 days after we leave (about the time we arrive in the village) Dani will be joining us. I must say he doesn't seem too perturbed about it. That might have something to do with the fact that those days are the final ones of the World Cup ;-)

Well, that's a rough update of things we've managed to achieve since the last post here. I still need to sort out health and travel insurance, and at the end of the week we have the Young Entrepreneurs' Workshop that I'm organizing for Lielle and her friends. I shall be attending a couple of evening paper mache sessions in a last effort to finish a couple of projects that I've started; and another evening I'm spending with my son Yair and his friends from the Rimon School of Music as they wrap up the end of the school year with music performances in a well-known Tel Aviv cafe. And last but not least, I really want to spend a quiet early evening surrounded by my grandchildren watching the sunset over the beach. A few weeks ago I was at the beach with them early evening and just as we were about to leave my little grandson, Israel-Shalom (almost 2), hypnotized by the sunset looked at me and said, in beautiful Hebrew: "Wow, what a beautiful sky!" I just had to sit down with him and enjoy it. Those moments are so precious.