T minus Five Days - and Don't Forget the Contest!

I am down to the last week of preparations for my next trip. On my list of things to do: buy another flash drive, check with AT&T about cell phone use, buy kitty litter and cat food and confirm plans with cat sitter, pack, get out passport. There will be other odds and ends, but I am a fairly organized and experienced traveler, and I mentally pack long before I do it physcally, so then it is only a matter of throwing things into the suitcase.
New this trip: I will be bringing my netbook computer to use at the workshops as well as for Internet access as I travel. I have also downloaded the Kindle for PC and some books to read. As a devoted literature person, I find it quite exciting that I was able to download the complete works of Shakespeare,Charles Dickens, and Virginia Woolf,as well as the poetry of Robert Burns and William Wordsworth, for next to nothing. I treated myself to a few light mysteries, and a book about female spies during World War II, which just looked interesting, and ties in with my next novel.
I need to accomplish a few writing promotion tasks before I go, so I will feel that I am not neglecting that part of my work.

AND DON'T FORGET THE CONTEST -- Leave a comment on my blog any time between now and the end of August (I have expanded the time frame) and you will be entered in a drawing to win a prize -- either a copy of my book The Gate House,available at or a souvenir of my UK travels.