Bad planning

As most of you know, I facilitate a retreat annually. I usually manage to get my timing right and have good weather and not arrange it so it interferes with Wimbledon. This year I seem to have managed neither.

Tomorrow I'm off to Holy Isle off Arran for 5 days with what the Met Office determines as 'mixed weather'... as this is the West Coast of Scotland it means that the only predictable thing will be the midges, which no doubt will be out in force.

Meanwhile Mountain Man is off on work duties around the UK and then off to Europe to route mark an inter-city bike ride and I think the only predictable thing on his horizon is chaos at Calais.

We had booked Vespa in with a friend in the Borders who has Amber, a 6 month old Labradoodle pup. Sadly Amber became ill over the weekend and so all those arrangements went out the window and we had to phone Edinburgh GD HQ to find an emergency replacement. Luckily late last night a person was found and Vespa is going off to a boarder in Edinburgh until my return on Monday evening.

Then, just to add to the planning chaos, one of my retreatants has had to pull out due to her husband's rapidly deteriorating health. The odd thing is, I did have someone get in touch a week or so back asking if there were any last minute places. All the others on the waiting list couldn't manage at this late time and so with many emails and phone calls I think we're all arranged for this new person to come.

And finally, the course I'm supposed to be doing with the International Writing Program at Iowa State Uni sent an email saying there was a compulsory pre-course seminar which is taking place this weekend. I thought this spelled doom and gloom for the course for me, but the organisers have been wonderful and made exceptions for me. I'm mightily relieved.

It's been one of those weeks of extreme ups and downs and I'm hoping it's all done and dusted now and calmness will ensue. But there's no harm in you sending positive vibes to help it all along if you can.

Next year I'm going to start off by seeing if I can manage to organise the retreat at least not to be during Wimbledon fortnight... and I'll leave the weather, dogs, courses etc to fortune and hope that it smiles.