Day One in the Big Brother Household

"Due to the shocking nature of these scenes, we can only bring you audio transcripts: Caution: swearing, and coarse language, right from the beginning:

Day One in the big bother housefhold. Rowena has been very bothered...

Eeeigh for'y two pm (you have to imagine the presenter's accent) Rowena has been packing for one and a half hours... She is surrounded by a pile o' handbags."

Rowena: "How the ^%(* am I supposed to find a &%££" handbag suitable for a night at the &%££O Italian opera, and walking round a motorsport paddock with a &%£&^hamburger?"

Housemate: "Don't worry chicken, you can never have too many handbags."

Actually this is a lie. You can have too many bags. Because I currently have one little chic bag (for night at the opera, big enough to sneak in camera, map and phrasebook, but still kind of sophisticated) one "I'm not really a handbag girl" for traipsing the male dominated motorsport paddock in Finland, a hangbag for the airport, a day pack, a laptop bag, a work satchel, a work suitcase, a back pack, and a queue of other bags vying for my attention and lining up for phase one of my travels.

Then there's the dilemma of dressing for 32 degree Italian heat, tempermental Finnish lakelands, and the Artic Circle. Thank goodness I moved my flight so I had time to change before Germany. I would never get a handbag that goes with lederhosen.

I've spent the day filing paperwork, leaving wills and powers of attorney, registering online for every bill that exists and then registering my computer so I can dial up to pay those bills from my phone, an airport corridor and if necessary my new electric toothbrush. I'm sure it will all be worth it once I am on the road.

For anyone who said "keep in touch" I will (oh you will regret it!) and my itinerary is as at the bottom of the email. Expect more tales of handbag woe to follow...

July 30 - August 2 Verona, Italy - highlights: opera at the arena - lowlights: last weekend with Boyf.

August 2 - August 16 Tampere, Jyvaskala (Finnish lake district), and Lapland Finland lowlights: having to work - highlights: reindeer farming

August 18 - August 24 Trier (birth place of Karl Marx), Germany. lowlights: having to work - highlights: er cheap wine?

August 25 - September 10 Hokkaido lowlights: having to bow to Japanese men - highlights: first time in Japan.

September 14 - 21 Cardiff Wales lowlights: having to work and eat Welsh food - highlights: feeling like I am back home again

September 29 - October 7 Sardinia lowlights: having to work - highlights: watching stylish Italian people at play

October 9 - November 27 Perth, Western Australia lowlights: undoing expensive therapy by revisiting my home town for a long fix. highlights: sun, surf, sun surf sun surf

November 27 onwards tbc