Like a warrior girding for battle, I slip into my familiar travel armour: Tilly pants with hidden passport pockets; cotton 'T' to protect my North Face Travel Shirt for another wear; worn hiking boots that have seen as much of the world as I have; layers of fleece and wind protection that peel off as I hop across to Japan, then south to equatorial Singapore.
Francisco has scrubbed the house and set out a welcome bottle of wine for our house-sitter, then dropping me at the airport with an admonition to travel safely and sanely. Skype and blog will shorten the trans-global distance.
There's a familiar routine about this now, but a still a nervous stomach. I bolster my bravado with travel cliches. "Ships are safer in the harbout, but that's not what they were built for". "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page."
Sitting in Pearson's Maple Leaf Lounge, a comforting reward for transporting licorice and PJs to a colleague's ex-pat sister, I take a deep breath. The hotels are booked, the transfers arranged... and all I have to do is wait to be taken away.
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