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Well, okay, I'm playing a bit fast and loose with time, as I have not, as yet, gone to Scotland. But we're close, dear friends. We're at T minus 7 hours and 40 minutes before our car picks us up. Although our plane doesn't leave until 7:30 p.m., we're hedging our bets against hell traffic on the Van Wyck and long security lines, to say nothing of my lingering fear that our seat assignments, which I made last night, somehow didn't take -- because heaven knows that I can't just relax and enjoy the trip, no, apparently I need to work myself into a lather about *something*. (I can already hear my mental health professional weeping in frustration.)

Before I rabbit on much further, I must dispense applause and thanks to everyone who stepped up to the plate and offered to guestblog, as well as everyone who sent me such nice e-mail, in the wake of my mewling and puking a few weeks back. Hopefully you're not all tired of my continued observation that one really does meet the nicest people on the World Wide Internets, because, well, one does. I am pleased to say that the raucous caucus that guestblogged for me last year when I was in Arkansas (that would be Snowball, orionoir, 'mouse, goliard, Tvindy, Mir, Walt and Anne) will be joined this year by McBeth, bunni, Kimberly, Kenneth, Jo (who also blogs here), nakedjen, C. JoDI, Lulu and Aimee, and possibly also ellamiel and Tristan (ladies, your invitations are still open!). Dear friends, I can't wait to see what transpires over the next two weeks -- although since I'll be offline until May 14, when we get home, I'll have to. Remember, if anyone tells you that I convinced them to blog by showing him/her my boobies, s/he is lying. Probably.

Lloyd and I have been talking about taking this trip ever since our last trip abroad, which, I'm ashamed to admit, was almost ten years ago. We booked our tickets in February. It still feels a bit unreal to me that the trip for which we have waited so long, with varying degrees of patience, is now hours away. Of course, I know people who have planned big trips for years, so I shouldn't be so amazed by the fact that the day is finally here. Last night my mom called to wish us bon voyage and told me that my brother and sister-in-law have decided to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary with a big family-and-friends party in Hawaii (so start saving your dimes now, Jen!). It should be mentioned that their fifth wedding anniversary will be on October 11, 2008. It sounds glorious, and I have to pat him on the back for it, but myself, I'm all focused now on our itinerary for the next 48 hours. Hawaii will just have to wait.

At the risk of sounding like an unseemly gloater, here is what the next 48 hours holds for us: we wait for the car while Lloyd does sensible things like vacuum the rugs and I do things like plan to clean the entire apartment, top to bottom, and then gradually scale back until I settle for wiping the coffee grounds off the spice cabinet and maybe picking up some dust bunnies. We go to the airport, wait wait wait, get on the plane, fly fly fly, arrive at Heathrow bright and early in the morning. Hopefully we will not have to sit on the tarmac for 45 minutes because a jetway has not been made available for us, but I'm not holding my breath. We get through Customs, we pick up our luggage and, either via the Tube or the Heathrow Express, we head into London. Since it will be too early for check-in, the nice people at our hotel will allow us to drop off our bags. We perambulate around the city, propping each other up at the Tate and the British Museum, possibly heading over to Kings Cross to pick up our train tickets to Edinburgh. Eventually we check in, we collapse in an exhausted heap, we struggle awake the next morning when we get our wake-up call, we go back to Kings Cross, we get on the train to Edinburgh, ride ride ride. From Edinburgh we catch a bus to Galashiels, where we walk for about 10 minutes until we spot the cafe and the chip shop three doors down from the guest house where we will be staying.

This is when things will start to get *interesting*.

Dear friends, Lloyd and I will be back on Saturday, May 14, hopefully around dinnertime. I will have pictures.