One week to go!

In exactly one weeks time we will be hitting the road, travelling from Bristol to Newcastle to catch the ferry to Stavanger in Norway.
Four became three this week as unfortunately Dean had to pull out of the trip due to work commitments, obviously we will miss his natural wit and charm but more importantly his ability to fix anything with a penknife and a piece of chewing gum.
From my point of view I am pretty much all set to go, my bike goes in tomorrow for a health check and a new set of Continental Road Attacks. I finish work on Wednesday which will give me a couple of days to gather together all the things I have accumulated for the trip, discard half of them because I will never use them, pack the other half and find there is not enough space and have to discard half of the half that was left, which means I will be left with what I started with!
I have had plenty of time on my bike in the last month, working in Yorkshire has given me the opportunity to ride up there regularly and I had a foray into Germany last week aswell, I have had several 500-600 mile days aswell so I think I am pretty well conditioned for some mileage disposal.
All the paperwork is sorted, we eventually all got our Russian Visas with the right dates on, Will has managed to find us accommodation in St Petersburg and Kaliningrad which means we will have beds to sleep in for at least three nights other than that we will be adopting an emergent strategy or winging it!
Mike
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange