All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go

No, not really. Just one bag of clothes and one box of kitchen supplies ready to be transferred back to my flat before the end of this long house-sit at the weekend.

If Pookie was upset or puzzled in any way, she kept her feelings to herself and stuck to her routine of bird-watching.

The title today is, of course, a reference to the song by John Denver which my mother loved and used to call "Leaving on a Freight Train".