Much of my Saturday is taken up by helping my friend Sara (who is getting married in February) and her bridesmaid Dawn sort out their dresses. After all, my sartorial eloquence makes my advice invaluable. Sara the power-tripping bride gets me to try various dresses 'for a laugh'. The experience is not terribly traumatic, but it is time-consuming. Helping people shop for clothes is not unlike being in a museum: you may not have walked far, but your legs really ache by the end of it.
Work on the Peru chapter between the shopping and group dinner with friends, then burn the 2am candle.
Spend the whole of Sunday behind my desk, but the Peru chapter is finally shaping up. The only problem is that I do the easy stuff first - re-writing or editing the text on attractions, but leaving the time-consuming and finicky listings until the end, which is what's happening now. At the same time, I need to decide on all the listings in order to complete the maps. At this rate, it may all be as I'd feared: I will end up taking the text to Russia and finishing editing on the plane or even in Moscow.
Put up an ad to let my room while I'm away. Lonely Planet pay sufficiently for me not to have to do this, but the other guides do not.
Spend almost my entire Monday at Milton Keynes, trying to get my deep poll document legalised for the Russian consulate. I get there early, having caught the 7am bus, but it takes me forever to walk up from the bus station to the legalisation office along Silbury Boulevard, which turns out to be a lot longer than expected. Milton Keynes has got to be the armpit of Britain; I've never come across an uglier, less pedestrian-friendly place in my life!
First the office sends me to a nearby solicitor's, so that he may sign the deed poll to confirm that it's genuine. Then I wait. And wait. And wait. As Sod's Law will have it, this is the first time in ages that their network's gone down, so the promised 90-minute turnaround turns into a 6-hour turnaround. I manage to use the time productively, tweaking the Nazca and Paracas part of the Peru chapter and reading Robert Harris's "Lustrum", but it's not the same as being in my 'office'.
Get through to the Trailblazer office; Bryn's away until Thursday, but he'll get back to me as soon as possible, I'm promised. Just as well really; I need that text and those maps before I go. Must print out all the Lonely Planet Lithuania stuff as well before departure.
Have to abandon my plans to visit my friend Kala in Coventry, meet her new children and gorge myself on her Jamaica cooking. At coming round to the realisation that I'm trying to do too much.
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