I'm in Brisbane now. There was lots of space in my bag when I left Sydney and I only had carry on luggage so I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

Turns out I didn't pack at least 2 things I meant to. Fortunately neither of those things were connections for camera / computer / phone etc. Now I'm at Fiona's house and it is apparent that every spare space in my bag will be filled with a book. Kev's helping - he's reviewed Fiona's library and decided to get a "how-to" book for me - it's how to recognise evil people! So that's another book. We won't get bored then. Fiona's even packed a reading light. Probaby in case the pressure is on and we aren't meeting the quota some time in the second week.

What I haven't bought is any of my books on textiles. They are all too heavy.

We've sorted out the shoe dilemma. We were advised to bring "good walking shoes" - now to me that means something you could conceivably walk 10 or 20 kms in and might otherwise be called hiking boots. Turns out that it has to be something you could wear to walk 2 miles around rice paddies. That would be just normal shoes then.

We leave in the morning and get to Denpasar at the very civilised time of 2.30 in the afternoon.

Just 5 more sleeps

We leave in 5 days for our excellent adventure to Indonesia to investigate traditional weaving and find out stuff we don't know. That basket weaving course we did 15 years ago ... well, that was a long time ago and there's only so far that pine needles and banana trash can take you.

Fiona is in charge of care factor stuff - health, mozzie control and of course putting together a small library to take with us. I'm trusting a whole 2 weeks of reading and entertainment to her. I'm guessing she isn't packing any "how-to" books though so that will be a change from my usual reading fare.

I'm in charge of pretty much anything that needs to plug in to a power point and all comms. We might even be able to video skype home but we'll see how we go with finding a fast enough connection when we get there. I'm thinking West Timor is a bit remote but we should be OK in Bali.

Here's the website of the NGO who will be our hosts on the tour, Threads of Life.