I have left it rather late to plan my amazing summer holiday. I hope it will still be amazing, after all this!

The story is this: I have a microscopy course from 13 August till 17 August, and will go on holiday as soon as the course finishes on Friday afternoon. I am going to ploni_bat_ploni's wedding on 28 August, and am committed to Amsterdam from Sunday evening 26 August to Wednesday morning 29 August. I have to be back in Stockholm for the Jewish New Year in the evening of Wednesday 12 September.

Now, my skeleton plan is to do some kind of triangular route between Stockholm, Amsterdam and South-East England. I want to take the leg between Stockholm and Amsterdam slowly and go overland or by sea, stopping off at interesting countries in between. Probably southern Sweden, Denmark, Germany and potentially Belgium, but another option is to go east across the Baltic and then a whistle-stop tour of the Baltic coast, Finland, Estonia or Latvia, Poland and then all the way through Germany. Probably the London – Amsterdam leg will also be overland or across the north sea, but I'll likely do that as one long trip and not bother stopping over in Belgium or France.

As well as touristing, I want to see as many friends as possible, hence the poll. I either fly straight to England and hang out there for a week or so before the wedding, then meander my way home slowly after the wedding (ie: Stockholm—London—Amsterdam—Stockholm via Northern Europe), or I meander from Stockholm to Amsterdam, come to England by rail with lethargic_man, have a week or ten days in England at the beginning of September, then fly back to Stockholm (Stockholm—northern Europe—Amsterdam—London—Stockholm). I'll pick based on which way gets me the most contact with people I want to see.

Other factors: I would like to see the sibs, who are NOLJ, but I will coordinate with them too. Conveniently, they are all in Brighton at the moment! If hatam_soferet is going to be in England at all this summer then time with her will be a priority, but I'm rather afraid she's not going to be certain of her movements soon enough for this to be easily plannable. lethargic_man and curious_reader are coming to the wedding with me, and obviously ploni_bat_ploni is the bride, so at least I know I'm not going to miss them. pseudomonas is going to be in North America the whole time, which is a pain but c'est la vie. There are a couple of people with whom I want to arrange meetings which might possibly be cast as dates depending how things go.

People are welcome to come and visit me in Sweden, especially if you come outside the dates when I'm planning to be away, but of course I can be flexible and do some day-trips around Sweden with visitors instead. megamole I am seeing tomorrow, and MF is here from 3 August to 10 August, so other visitors during that week would require a bit of coordinating and it probably helps if you know MF. (MF, by the way, is a Persegirl whom I keep finding and losing again, and now I've found her again via the wonderful Facebook, and I'm really looking forward to hanging out with her.)

The other thing is the end of September. darcydodo is going to be in England, though not for very long. Darcy, can you confirm the precise dates when you have them? I really want to see her, but it clashes horribly with the High Holy Days, and it may all turn out to be a disaster.

Otherwise I've been slaying geography with telecommunications; had a great conversation with darcydodo yesterday evening, and she said wise things and was generally wonderful. And this morning I talked to MK by Skype. His career continues its stellar progress, Mrs K has now found a job, and they've just bought a house, congratulations to them. The Most Adorable Boy in the World was being shy and didn't want to tell me about his new Harry Potter book; just seeing my name on the screen probably doesn't give him enough cues to remember who I am. And pottering around on Facebook trying to find elegant ways to summarize the last couple of decades of my life for all the re-discovered old friends.