The sixty seventh day

We're leaving on a jet plane..... I'm thinking of that song and all the people who have never heard of Peter, Paul and Mary or John Denver. Hong Kong - then 23 days in England driving to all the places of my past - plus some I have never seen but always wanted to. Then the train all the way to Avignon and four weeks in Provence - a few days in BarTHelona ( practising the accent already) and two weeks in our favourite city - Paris. AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!

What made me even think of this trip after fighting so hard to be mortgage free? (Even though we didn't quite make it) Was it the amount of funerals in the past twelve months? The people I knew, younger than me, who suddenly gave up on living, or life gave up on them?

It was a new writer - Cristina - whose script I was assessing for the Writer's Guild, who put the thought in my head. She is immensely talented, and hungry, and pushy, all the things that spell success. And she and her husband also happen to own a farmhouse in Provence. When she said we could go and stay there any time...the seed was sown.

So here I am, on the last day of countdown. Tomorrow we fly to Hong Kong and, though I hope this blog will be witty and poignant and all the other things that make up backcover blurbs ( Coral Drouyn's diary of her European trip is both witty and poignant - you may all vomit now!), right now I am in a panic...I haven't packed; I haven't made notes for the house/cat sitter: I haven't done my washing, or paid the bills - the cheque for our travel funds still hasn't cleared; I have an assessment to finish for the AWG; and a couple of scripts I'm editing to locate, plus transferring my files to Tony's laptop...and we need to be out of here in 9 hours....TOPS!

So here it is. In October I turn 66. I don't believe it; my kids don't believe it; my friends (who all look older - no I'm not being a bitch....well...yes I am but a TRUTHFUL bitch) don't believe it and my beautiful husband - who, at 73, looks at least 10 years younger - calls me his 16 year old Dolly Bird. I guess it helps that we've only been married five years. But one thing is for certain - that picture in the attic ( thanks Oscar) that is old and wrinkled, is going to disintegrate one day - so now is the time to capitalise on the amnesia of old age - and be the thirty year old I am inside.

When we booked the trip I had no intention of blogging. My little Birman kitten Mighty Mouse ( Lord Oliver Monta Purrington) has his blog - and his facebook page - and his followers who love his liddle kidden filoserfy - but that was enough of a distraction from work for me. Then we made the booking, and locked in the dates, and it wasn't until weeks later that I got out a calndar and realised the trip was 66 days. Sixty six days and I'm turning 66? Play the Twilight Zone music....doo- doo-doo-doo.....

Coincidence, Synchronicity; Serendipity ( LOVE that word)...probably all three - but I refuse to believe that Sixty Six Days isn't relevant to my future.
If nothing else it's providing a title for this blog.

Coral
14/6/2010