Bagged up

We have been packing for our exciting holiday which starts tomorrow.

We want to set off at the very first moment of daylight, or at least, after we have emptied the dogs and collected the trailer from the farm, and so we have had to get everything ready this weekend.

It had been complicated because we do not have any middle class suitcases, only some decidedly peasant-style ones, which we bought at a discount on Kendal Market about fifteen years ago, and which are beginning to look decidedly the worse for wear.

This is not because of all the exotic foreign holidays we have been having, but because they have spent half of their lives dumped in the trunk rooms at various boarding schools, and having forty other trunks and sets of muddy rugby boots dumped on top of them.

We decided that we wanted a more civilised veneer, since first impressions count and we certainly can’t rely on our personal appearance to do a good job for us, and so we are travelling with several smaller bags instead. For some reason, probably related to past moments of economy, we have got several acceptable leather overnight bags but no respectable suitcases.

This is all right because we have got several stops. The first will be at the lovely lovely hotel in Yorkshire, followed by Number One Daughter’s also lovely spare bedroom, followed by the probably equally lovely  hotel in Bath.

We have packed a separate bag for each one. This has meant a lot of counting on fingers saying things like: Well when we get there that’ll be the carol concert, so we’ll need to be wearing our carol concert clothes to travel across, and so on. We will not be getting changed more than once in a day, not even for dinner when we ought to make an effort to be smart, because it is too much luggage and effort.

I have got to get all

Hence this afternoon I required Mark to come and spectate whilst I faffed about trying to decide what we wouldonly need once, and what might be the best outfits for shopping or eating or outdoor wear. You have got to get things right, you know, and I regret to say that I almost never do. I spent a lot of time wondering if the purple shirt could be worn with the red dungarees, and what colour shirt might look all right with the leopard skin ones, whilst Mark made encouraging noises but really had not much more idea than I did. I tried things on and flapped about and worried, but in the end I had a complete set of things that I thought probably looked all right. I imagine when I get there I will discover that they don’t, but that is next week’s problem. There are a couple of bags that will go with us everywhere, and some which will make a single appearance at one overnight stop. It was terribly complicated,

Mark has been very patient.

Anyway, I think, after almost two days of frowning and hard concentrating, I think it is done. We have cut Mark’s hair and repacked our sponge bags and searched for the charging leads and washed all of the poopy cushions.

They are very leaky, the poopies, not the cushions, obviously.

Also they are completely huge. They are the fattest poopies I have ever seen, between them all they must weigh as much as poor Rosie, who is eating her head off. Their necks are solid rolls of fat, like little piglets

I got impatient with poor Rosie this morning. Since she has had her poopies she has not been leaping into the back of the taxi but has had to be lifted. This was not the case for the first day or two, when she jumped as well as she did before she became rounded, but after a while she decided that it was too difficult and bobbed about at the back of the car making ineffectual little bounces and looking at me plaintively, so I have lifted her in.

Today I got fed up with it, and insisted that she jump in by herself.

She looked at me tragically, and wagged about, looking as though she was trying to get in, but actually without making the smallest effort, so I shut the boot and drove off without her.

I stopped about ten yards along the road and opened the boot casually whilst looking as though I was going to do something else.

She shot after us and hurled herself into the back of the car with a single bound.

She has had no difficulty since.

It appears that even for dogs, it is the story that you tell yourself.

We are off tomorrow.

I am very excited indeed.

Just one last night at work.