Nearly there.

Two days to go. I’ve been on my last training ride, I’ve checked (and rechecked) the accommodation, I’ve fitted my lights, the energy bars we ordered have arrived and Judy’s sent me the links so I can download each day’s route onto my Garmin.

It would be lovely to say all this has gone smoothly but that would be far from the truth. Some of the accommodation hosts now seem like members of the family. I’ve spoken to them so much about the many changes we’ve made to our bookings (one less, two more, take one of those off, no we’d need another single bedroom, three more people).

I had a rear light fitted to the rack. The batteries had corroded and the light wouldn’t work but we had a new spare. It needed to fit on the seat post but I had a bag on the rack so the light wasn’t visible. I spent an hour or so trying to find one that would fit on a rack and eventually managed it. It may well be possible to fit that light on the back of my rack but only if you have hands the size of a small pixie with a two-pixie team of assistants. I've put the light on the seatpost and removed the bag,

The energy bars arrived. We had ordered four boxes, two of Raspberry and Apple, one of Tangy Apricot and one of Pineapple and Ginger. I checked the order and all seemed fine. Unfortunately the two single boxes had suffered a personality crisis in transit and had joined the Raspberry and Apple Party (The RAP – I bet the music was good) so we have eighty of those. An email exchange followed and we’re waiting to see what the outcome is. With luck we’ll have replacements before we set off.

Down/uploading the route seemed easy, once we’d stopped doing it the wrong way and followed instructions (which are daft but I didn’t write them). It worked quickly and easily and all was well – until I checked my Garrmin and found I only had six of them on there, instead of the fifteen we needed. We have a Plan B (and C and D, I think) if we can’t manage it so all will be fine. If GPS, satellites and our combined IT skills fail we’ll have them printed out on paper.

I’ll pack soon. Most of my kit is ready so it’s just a matter of sorting it out and making sure things go in the right place. I’m keeping the weight down as much as possible so that and packability are the criteria for everything. The deodorant I’m taking weighs 1 gram less than the one that’s staying here, as does the microfibre towel. That’s 2 grams saved. “Small incremental gains” as someone once said.

Wish us luck and a tailwind – we’ll need both.