*Dies* *Goes to Heaven* *Returns to Heaven on Earth*

I’ve been holding out on you. I’m sorry. But I just wanted to make sure I didn’t jinx anything.

So … remember this post? About me being impulsive and impetuous and leaping before looking? Well – it’s happened again!

I’d promised back then that I was coming to England in March of ’08. (okay, there might have been one or two places where I didn’t write that little piece of information – but I did write about going to meet a friend in Chincoteague.) And later I wrote about what a great trip Chincoteague was. But didn’t mention England anymore. Then my roof developed a natural skylight, remember that? And I was convinced that I shouldn’t go to England. So I quietly tried to back out. Then all the best people came to my house in October … and England was mentioned again. Again I talked about fiscal responsibility.

Then Dr. Esq and I went to dinner. He talked about the things he’d promised himself he’d do – and how there were so many things he hadn’t done. How he kept pushing those things aside, and he wasn’t going to anymore. I mentioned England, he mentioned Italy. Returning from the restaurant we looked at tickets and frequent flyer miles and he decided on the spur of the moment that we should go to England. I told him I was afraid to book anything until I had my passport renewed. He agreed. I got the passport underway, and then, as he thought about it, he realized England was my dream and not his. So he decided to not go.

I told him I understood (and I did), but I was disappointed – but happy – because I’d already committed and now I was going no matter what.

Immediately Dilly and I set about planning our itinerary. It’s still pretty lose. But at this point we know we’re going from her place in London to Edinburgh, Scotland for 3 days where we’ll do some Scotch tasting and exploring. From there – we’ll nip over to Wales to visit the lovely Binooby and fascinating Erica! We return back to London – to tour the Tate British and Modern … and meet up with a bunch of lovely OKC’ers to drink. Sounds like the perfect trip doesn’t it?

And so it came to pass – that I mentioned to a former traveling partner, “I am having a hard time concentrating on getting your pictures and the words to this blog to match ... I have purchased my tickets to England and Dilly and I are scheming like MAD ... about every 10 minutes the plans change!”

His instant response was, “oh man...... I am soooooo jealous. Seeing all of Dilly's recent get together photos really made me wish I could go over there. You are going to have so much fun.”

And because I am a goat, who leaps and thinks later I said, “There's room for an early March b'day boy present .... without family.... jus' saying!!!”

Emailing is so instant .. that in a flash I had a response waiting in my in box, “haha.... just before you wrote that I was contemplating asking if there was room in your suitcase....”

We talked about how I was using frequent flyer points to pay for my airfare – but I was still feeling guilty about going with our current economy. Because he’s such a great friend he reassured me, “The trip is totally worth it, and I can't believe you got tix for just the taxes!”

Of course, I have a big mouth, and shared with Dilly parts of our exchange. To which she replied, "Tell him this: "you loon...sell a couple of prints of your fucking amazing photography prints and buy a plane ticket over here for the week of March 17! those are ORDERS, mister!!" I followed that message with one last one of my own, “She also wrote this: "run up some numbers. he can do this for about very little, because we are being careful of our $$” and added my own little post-script,

“ps: AND .... you're really, really wanted.”

I followed it with an e-mail outlining our proposed schedule, and then there was a phone call where I tried to convince him he REALLY WASN’T RUINING ANYTHING BY JOINING US.

At 4:30, on the phone, he uttered these words to me, “BOOKED”

3/18 Arriving Heathrow 10:55 am

3/23 Departing Heathrow 11:00 am

BLUE IS COMING TO ENGLAND WITH ME!!!

This is going to be the best trip ever! England, Scotland, Wales, Dilly, Blue and all the UK OKC’ers. What an amazing gift! Of course, I get to pass the gift on by helping Blue celebrate this special birthday in style!

I cannot begin to tell you how excited, happy, thrilled I am!

You must know, I see God in every little twist and turn of this whole adventure – and am amazed beyond all belief that he is so good to me.

Now it is far too late, and I leave on a business trip tomorrow night … but I just had to share!

Goodnight everyone! I think I <3 you all!