… might be happening, you know.

It seems that Connections, my travel agent in Brussels, might come up with the goods.

They have found me a flight for just €583 for a start, going via Philadelphia but then again you can’t have everything.

The difficulty is that it leaves at 10:40 in the morning on the Wednesday which means that I need to leave here on the 17:30 train at the latest Tuesday, but I can’t guarantee that we will have finished recording by then.

So I’ve asked them to see if there’s a similar deal for a plane on the Thursday, and if there is, then I’m taking it.

As for car hire, I told them about my difficulties. I told them the best quote I had found and the guy with whom I spoke reckons that they can beat it.

But the hire company they use only allow rentals for three-weekly periods. This means that there will need to be a changeover but that’s really out of the question as in the middle of my journey I’ll be nowhere near Toronto.

They are getting back to me tomorrow with the price and if it does beat the best that I have found then I’ll be going for that one too, as long as this changeover thing can be arranged.

But you’ve no idea how difficult it all is, I’ll tell you.

The banks have been organised too. I told the Royal Bank of Scotland that I’m going to Canada – I don’t want a repeat of 2002 when the first time I bought petrol in the USA it flagged up “unusual spending pattern” and blocked the card, leaving me to starve for two weeks.

I’ve paid a lump up front on both my credit cards and I’ll remember to keep them separate this time so as not to have a repeat of 2005.

What with a passport and a driving licence, the only thing that can now go wrong is that if I am arrested at the airport. Yes, 2002 was rather an eventful year for me.

I’ve also emptied all of the microcassette tapes and I’ll be taking the dictaphone with me if I remember it.

There are loads of other things that I need to remember but I’ve forgotten what they are right now.

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