Running away - very slowly!

The name of my blog is Travelling Jan - but I'm not, yet. I have now got a date for my first WWOOfing (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms) assignment and it is 15th May which is approximately one calendar month away. Aaaghhhh!

I've been trying to run away from the situation I find myself in for about a year now. Has anyone run away so slowly before? If I rented my home I would have gone months ago after serving the appropriate notice to my landlord. However, owning my home is a whole different ball game - I can't just walk away from it and I'm not ready to sell it just yet. I need to have some time away first to see if leaving is what I really want to do. So, I decided to let it out, but it was in such a state that it would have been unlettable so, in a crazy rush of blood to the head, I decided to try to implement all the design ideas I had been holding in my head for the last seven years, plus holding down my cleaning business to create the funds necessary to finance the improvements, and I would do as much of the work as I could myself.

It's exhausting trying to be a one man (woman) DIY SOS team and everything takes so long. I had a builder to sort out the wonky walls in my bathroom and install the new bathroom fixtures, but then I took on the tiling and making the tongue-and-groove bath panel and all the decoration - it's amazing how many coats of paint you need to apply to get a good finish. Now I've started cladding the sitting room walls up to dado rail height in the same T & GV (to use a technical term) and then that all has to be primed and painted, and the walls painted too. Then, I need to build in a wardrobe in my bedroom and redecorate that completely, too - all by 15th May!

After I finish all the DIY I've then got to store my furniture, pack up all the clothes I won't need (hopefully) on my journey round Britain, and keep out all the stuff I anticipate needing that I can pack into a small hatchback. Will I really need three sets of waterproof clothing? Should I take the ankle/knee/back supports or will people think I'm a wreck before I even start work for them? Should I really be doing this at all? I keep waking up at 4.30 in the morning and panicking gently to myself, but then I remember Jeni's words,repeated often in the last week we spent together before she shook off the dust of Great Britain and headed to Paraguay and the unknown..........."It'll be fine"!!!