One more sleep, Mark said when we woke up this morning.
This might not have been very tactful, because it threw me into an instant wagging flap. One more sleep is not very many in which to reorganise yourself into the sort of dignified representative of the middle classes who might not attract adverse comment even in the south of England.
I am sorry to say that all sorts of little concerns still need to be resolved before that glorious moment, not the least of which has been a luggage-related problem.
It is not exactly an emergency, but it has proved an irritation nevertheless.
It is that I do not like any of our suitcases.
I could not exactly explain why I do not like them, but I don’t. We have had them since 2011 when we went on a real holiday once, the sort with aeroplanes and getting foreign currency from the Post Office and a credit card bill when you come home. We did not own any suitcases at all then, and bought them especially for the adventure on Kendal Market, where they were an absolute bargain at Buy One Get One Half Price.
You will not be surprised to learn that they were not Louis Vuitton.
I will not be purchasing Louis Vuitton suitcases even if I win the lottery, since I do not have the first idea how to pronounce it.
I would have to send them an email.
Anyway, they have served all of our suitcasy requirements ever since, and I have disliked them for all of that time, which has not really mattered very much since we do not go on holidays very often.
They are red and purple and squishy enough to be shapeless but not squishy enough for convenient storage.
I have been going on and on about nice suitcases for a few days, ever since Mark agreed that he did not like them either. I am not the sort of person who passes up an opportunity to purchase something interesting, so of course I promptly volunteered to do something about it.
I looked on eBay.
There were some very lovely leather suitcases there.
I am a bit of a Luddite when it comes to suitcase design, and the ones I liked were all beautiful box-shaped ones from the nineteen fifties. They looked wonderful, but cost about a hundred quid each, and were probably too ancient and fragile to be stuffed to our usual suitcase-bursting point where one of us is obliged to sit on the lid in order that the other one can fasten it.
In the end I found one that looked reasonably robust, and also that you could use in other places as well as decoratively strapped to the back of a convertible Riley, and bought it, which was when I realised that it would not arrive until Tuesday.
I messaged the seller begging her to post it urgently, and in the end, after the dispatch of a further six quid, she agreed to post it Urgently Dispatched Excess Charge Tracked With Expensive Insurance Next Day Delivery.
When I looked at the tracking details on Saturday they assured me that it was safely in their Delivery Hub and could confidently be expected to arrive on Tuesday just like the cheap Whenever It Suits Us postage we had rejected in the first place.
I squeaked with horror.
We would have to use the horrid suitcases after all.
Mark is not so easily daunted, and since we had to go to Kendal anyway, he kindly suggested that we spent Saturday afternoon searching through Kendal’s suitcase shops.
This led to the discovery that there are no suitcase shops in Kendal. Even the market stall where we purchased the old ones is long departed.
The upholstery shop had a couple of red and purple suitcases stashed high out of reach on their top shelves, but that was it.
In the end we found a tiny but respectable one in Age Concern for a fiver and bought it.
It was nice, but far too small. It would barely contain Mark’s shoe boxes.
We despaired, quietly, over coffee in bed this morning.
Eventually we decided to have a last hunt through eBay, where we found three matching leather suitcases that seemed to be just perfect.
They are in Salford, and we will be going right past there, so we bought them and arranged to pick them up as we make our epic journey south.
This should be a relief, and indeed it is, except that I am now in the unexpected position of having to pack our things after we have set off.
I am not exactly sure what to do.
It seems terribly risky to shove our shirts and socks into carrier bags, how awful if something were to go wrong with the purchase and we were to arrive at our aspirationally middle-class destination with all of our underwear spilling on to the pavement out of an Asda Bag For Life.
Neither do I want to use the horrid red-and-purple suitcases.
At the moment all of our clothes are sitting on the desk in my office, folded and awaiting a decision.
I have not yet reached one.
One more sleep.
