The Initial Post

Alex here:With 5 working (or 10 calendar) days to go, the final preparations are being made.

Scanning and making copies of important documents,
chasing up Qantas on some stuff,
packaging and mailing our Napoleonic gear,
redirecting our mail,
handing over my Baker rifle so it can make it to Waterloo with me, and
finalising what we have to homeschool Gene with while we're away.

So, what drew us on this adventure? I blame Napoleon. About 7 years ago, I was reading something and they mentioned the Battle of Waterloo and I thought, 'Holy shit, the 200 year anniversary is happening soon! Best I get myself squared away and join a Napoleonic re-enactment group!' I wasn't really into that time period, mainly because I didn't know anyone who was active in it.

Then I realised the 100-year anniversary of ANZAC Cove, the 600-year of Agincort and the 800-year of the signing of the Magna Carta was on in 2015 which sealed the deal.

Dee was up for it and Gene was only about 7 at the time, so she didn't have a say in the matter. I dragged out an excel spreadsheet and did the number crunching. Bugger going on a trip for just one event, lets make it worthwhile. I figured I'll have 4 1/2 months of Long Service Leave by then and I could save 1 1/2 months (30 working days) of normal leave, leaving us with about 180 days to travel.

Lots of hard saving occurred with a good balance of 'having a life' during the lead-up time.

Even now we only have a vague plan which is only locked in for dates where we Have To Be. ANZAC Cove, Waterloo, flying out of Europe to New York. Outside of that we're playing it fairly fast and loose with some basic time lines like 'time to start travelling back to the UK NOW'. I've learnt the hard way not to lock Dee down in for dates.

Anyway, this is where we stand at this point. Things are falling into place and Dee is not totally wigging out yet but that will be coming soon.
:)

I'm hoping that all 3 of us will be contributing to the blog, especially Gene as she's the one missing out on 2 terms of school.