How to Pack

It baffles me the panic people get into when faced with holiday packing. There is indeed a science to it, but it's a science that's easily mastered and I, who have been studying it for a quarter of a century, can now clothe four for a fortnight in less than an hour. Things that seem obvious to me, however, have clearly been missed by most of my acquaintance, so here, for the benefit of all, is my cut-out-and-keep guide to holiday preparations.

1: Locate the cat bed that, three times a year, doubles up as a suitcase. It's advisable to give it a vacuum for moustachioed thermals can cause discomfort.



2: Extract from the dirty linen basket all the must-have wardrobe items that you forgot to wash before departure. This operation should be undertaken discreetly. 




3: Fling said items plus all other necessities in a pile. For best results this pile can be begun the night before to give you more time to appraise it.



4: Remove from the pile approximately a third of your daughter's choices and double the quantity of underpants contributed by your son. Don't worry if you haven't got round to shopping for your beach body. So long as your brolly coordinates with your tankini you can still cut a dash on Britain's sands. 



5: Find a temporary hidden home for the sculptures that tower on your kitchen draining rack so that the cat sitter won't judge you.



6: At this point you may feel panic rising. Positioning two cubic metres of luggage into 1.6 cubic metres of Skoda involves advanced mathematics and unusual cunning, but remind yourself that children, like Ikea shelving, are adaptable.



7: So, now you're all ready to set off. Oh, but hang on, I always forget this bit! Think back to what's in that suitcase. If you've packed more than two pairs of shorts and fewer than two pairs of cable-knit tights, you'll need to leave the family in the car and dash back to the house for one last imperative:



Happy holidays!


Comments

  1. Anonymous27 July 2013 at 20:33

    We are always waiting for hubby when we go on a car trip. He always manages to have to run back in the house for that one last pee and brush his teeth. We now lie about what time we actually have to be ready at.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron27 July 2013 at 21:11

      Actually, The Vicar is usually the last one out of our house too. And then as we're driving off he'll invariably exclaim: 'Have you locked the back door!' and we have to turn back.

      Delete
  2. Unknown27 July 2013 at 21:03

    Damn this list is good! If I hadn't had to cancel our holiday today due to a gammy legged husband I would be following it to the letter. I shall bookmark it for next time, when either the gammy leg is recovered it or I make off in the middle of the night to escape the madness.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron27 July 2013 at 21:11

      That's jolly bad luck. Commiserations to you and your husband.

      Delete
  3. Older Mum29 July 2013 at 20:53

    This is brilliant..... I'm with you, throw a pile on the floor and then shove it all in a suitcase. Have fun picking off the cat hairs on the beach!..... You do make me laugh Anna Tims!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sian Lennon1 August 2013 at 09:53

    Love this! I'm glad I'm not the only one to do all this :-) we've just acquired a new puppy, so next time we go on holidays I'm going to have to work out how to fit 3 children and a dog in with the luggage. Maybe if I leave my husband at home?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jay3 August 2013 at 21:52

    Brilliantly summed up, particularly the overload of daughter clothes and the lack of son's!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Older Single Mum6 August 2013 at 11:43

    I can't believe you actually shave your legs!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daily Mail Columnists Should Wear Burkas

Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones has provoked the ire of Twitter with by declaring that mummy bloggers are blinkered dimwits whose lives are spiced by Napisan. I'm afraid I have to sympathise with her, for all of her prejudices echo my own: Writing about my life has pretty much ruined it. Supper last night was an elderly carrot glued to the fridge shelf by a pool of brown mucus and the floor was flooded when I left the bath taps running because Blogger has diverted me from domestic essentials. I've had to shut the children in front of the television when a new post has assailed me and some family members no longer speak to me because Twitter interactions leave me no time to reach the telephone. But there is a big part of me that thinks writing should be hard: you should cringe whenever you press that 'publish' button. Artists – and I'm sorry, I do consider myself an artist – have to wrench the dirtiest, most disgusting part of their inner soul and show it t...
Read more

The Various Uses of Rubber

I have ordered a new pair of wellies from Amazon for the daily walk to school. My current hardly-at-all-old pair has developed a fissure along one toe. I only noticed this when I was wading along the stream that flows brownly past bobbing Argos bags en route to the afternoon pick up, and I was not pleased. They are a glamorous pair with pink spots and white swirls, bought to ease my daughter's pain in ackowledging a wellie-wearing, stream-paddling mother in public. I now distrust wellies with spots and swirls, so order a safe-looking green pair. Better to be waterproof than glamorous. Royal Mail gets them as far as my door, thrusts through a 'Sorry you were out' card, and promptly loses them. Amazon is sympathetic and dispatches a replacement pair. This also makes it to my door and again a card is left. This time I decide to pick them up in person from the Royal Mail depot. The man behind the glass screen makes off with my delivery card and probably has a cup of tea and...
Read more

A DIY Guide to the Middle-Classes

I wonder sometimes what I am. I have lived the last decade on an inner city council estate, amid Oxford academia, in a remote country town and in London suburbia. In the first we were, with our relentless consonants and sagging bookshelves, regarded as aristocrats. In the second, as the 'squeezed middle'. In the third, as city sophisticates and now, sometimes, isolated in my tweed amid the Ralph Lauren and the hoodies, I feel myself a bumpkin. Class should no longer matter. Nowadays, for most of us, it's more a question of perception than birth. But the perception matters. My daughter battles to adjust speech, habits and dress to blend in with each new environment; the political parties compete to woo the amorphous throng they deem Middle England and Melvyn Bragg has started a television series on class and culture. The British, he decides, no longer define themselves by class, but by the music they listen to, the books they read. I listen to Dolly Parton and Beethoven....
Read more