This weekend, I’m packing ready for our holiday, so thought I would share one of my favourite pieces from my book, Midlife Without a Map. It’s called ‘Getting Holiday Ready’. I wrote it back in 2019 when we were heading to Crete to celebrate my fortieth. It perfectly sums up the chaos I create when I’m trying to be organised.
I hope you enjoy it.
Getting Holiday Ready
‘I want an airport experience,’ I tell Chris, three weeks before our summer holiday. ‘I want to browse the shops and have dinner. We need to be ready.’
‘I’m always ready,’ he says. ‘It’s you that never is.’
‘I will be.’ I’m amazed at how confident I sound.
‘You say that,’ Chris says, less confident, ‘but you — ’
‘I’m organised!’
For the first time in my life, I feel organised. Not quite packed and ready but getting there. Usually, I’m very last minute, running around throwing clothes into my suitcase, hoping that we make it to the airport on time. On two occasions (Chris’s fortieth in Vienna and a summer holiday to Majorca), we were so late we had to run to catch the plane. Both times, I’d sprinted through the terminal, vowing never to let it happen again.
This year, it’s my fortieth, and turning forty is bad enough without all the extra stress that almost missing a flight brings. So, there’s nothing else for it. I’m going for the super organised approach.
I begin by hanging all my holiday clothes in the spare room. Next, I open my suitcase. It is far too soon to put the clothes into the suitcase, but they are together. This is progress.
When I’m out shopping, I pick up a few bargains — a bikini here, a pair of shorts there. Then there’s new hand luggage in the sale and some amazing summer dresses, which need matching shoes and bags. I put every purchase into the spare room, ready to put into the case.
The next thing is to decide which books I am taking with me. With so many in the house, this takes a while, but eventually I select six paperbacks.
‘I’m ready,’ I say to Chris, as I carry the books into the spare room. ‘Are you?’ This is the first time I have ever been ready before my husband, and it feels good.
‘It’ll take me two minutes,’ he says.
I know this is not an exaggeration. If there was a world record for suitcase-packing, Chris would hold it.
He moves past a maxi dress hanging on the door and points towards the rest of my dresses, shorts, tops, shoes, bikinis and now books. ‘Are you taking all this?’
‘Yes. They are all essential items.’
Chris raises his eyebrows.
‘It’s not too much,’ I say.
He smiles. ‘If you say so.’
‘I do.’ I look around the room. There is a lot to squeeze into the case, but it’s a big case. I’m more worried that I won’t have enough books to get me through a two-week holiday. That would be unbearable, so I browse my shelves and select four more.
On the day of our departure, despite having a day’s work to do, I am keen to get into the holiday spirit. I drive to the office with the radio on, listening to a local radio station that blasts out upbeat songs. I nod and sing along. The in-between music chat is all about holidays.
‘A man was over his luggage allowance,’ the DJ says, his voice inching higher and higher, ‘so he wore seventeen T-shirts on the plane! Seventeen T-shirts, can you believe it?’
‘What an idiot.’ I switch channels. ‘Who’d do that?’
I drive the rest of the way listening to the news. Even the Brexit chat is better than the T-shirt nonsense.
‘Have you packed?’ My colleague asks when I arrive in the office.
‘Just about.’ I can’t help feeling proud of myself. ‘Everything’s ready. I just need to put it all in my case.’
‘What’s the weight allowance?’
‘20 kilograms for the hold and 10 kilograms for hand luggage. And I’ve got new hand luggage,’ I tell her. ‘In the sale.’
I thought she’d want more information about the sale bargain but no, being an organised type, she’s more bothered about the specifics of the flight.
‘What size bag are you allowed on the plane?’ she asks.
‘No idea.’
‘You should check. They’re strict.’ And she launches into a story about a friend of a friend who had her hand luggage put in the hold because it was something like a millimetre over the specified guidelines. ‘She had to use a carrier bag for her hand luggage.’
Immediately I’m on my phone, reading the final holiday instructions, which I’d glanced at when they arrived but hadn’t read in detail. It says that hand luggage should not measure more than 55 x 40 x 20cm.
I think of my lovely new bag with its extra pockets and compartments. I try to measure it up in my mind, but all I can see is me standing at the check-in desk with an official shaking his head and saying, ‘No. It’s too big,’ before snatching it from me, throwing it onto the conveyor belt and into the hold. Or, worse still, making me empty the contents into a carrier bag in front of a planeload of people.
‘Have you got a smaller one?’ my colleague asks.
‘No.’
‘Maybe just take a handbag for hand luggage,’ she says.
I think of all the clothes in the spare room waiting to be packed. If I’m forced to use a smaller bag, I’ll not have enough room for everything. This is not good news. For the rest of the day, I’m in a panic, unable to shake the image of the check-in fiasco from my mind.
I make it home and race into the house. Chris is already home and packed, his suitcase by the door.
‘We have a problem,’ I tell him. ‘A bag problem.’
I rummage in the kitchen drawer, pull out a tape measure and run upstairs, Chris following at a slower pace.
The bag is where I’d left it on the bed in the spare room. I hold the tape measure against it. ‘It’s too big!’
‘What do you mean, too big?’ Chris says.
‘Too big for hand luggage.’
I measure it again, hoping I’m wrong. But I’m not. I won’t be able to take it with me. My lovely new bag! The one I got in the sale.
‘Do you have something smaller?’ Chris asks, his voice calm.
I empty my wardrobes, trying to find a bag that conforms to flight guidelines but is still big enough for all my stuff. There’s nothing. I’m not sure such a bag exists. I consider phoning my sister, the queen of bags, but there’s no time. We need to leave for the airport.
‘How about this?’ From the deep, dark depths of his wardrobe, Chris pulls out a faded blue rucksack that has definitely seen better days.
‘It’ll have to do.’ I take it from him, trying not to notice the fraying strands of cotton dangling from the zip. It has an old schoolbag look to it, not quite the stylish luggage I’d intended. But as I don’t have any other options, I stop myself from asking when and where this bag was last used — from the state of it, he’s likely to say double maths in 1992 — and instead focus on transferring the contents of my lovely bag into this monstrosity.
Not everything fits and there are several items that need to go into my suitcase along with everything else. I work quickly, grabbing clothes from their hangers and folding them into the case. The excited holiday mood I’d been in this morning has been replaced with a feeling of dread as the clothes stack higher and higher. And then the realisation hits me. ‘I’m going to be over the weight limit!’
‘How many bikinis have you got?’ Chris asks.
‘No idea.’
‘Are you into double figures?’
I think of the bikinis — red and blue, navy blue, bright blue, blue and white spotted, black, the one with the flowers on, the red swimsuit… ‘I’ve lost count.’
‘Do you need them all?’
‘Yes!’
‘What about losing some books?’
‘I’d rather lose you than the books.’
‘You’ll have to leave something behind,’ he tells me, glancing at his watch.
I take everything out of the case and put everything, except a vest top, back in again. Meanwhile, Chris goes downstairs and returns with his own suitcase. He puts it on the floor and slides the zip open. ‘You might get a bit more in here.’
I stuff as much as I can into his already full case, but there’s still a mountain of clothes. And I don’t want to leave any of them behind.
‘I don’t want to stress you,’ Chris says. ‘But we need to leave.’
‘I know!’
For the next twenty minutes, I race from the bedroom to the bathroom and back, dragging the case for weigh-in.
23kg.
‘I’ll lose some running stuff.’ I take out four pairs of running shorts and matching tops.
22.8kg.
Out go a pair of shoes and a handbag.
21.4kg.
Out go five of the bikinis. I think of the man on the radio wearing seventeen tops and suddenly it doesn’t seem such a bad idea. ‘If I wore a few bikinis under my dress, who’d know?’
‘You can’t do that,’ Chris says. ‘They’ll think you’re smuggling something.’
He looks at his watch and while he isn’t looking, I throw a bikini into his case.
‘We need to go.’ His voice sounds almost desperate. ‘Now.’
I race from the bedroom to the bathroom for the final weigh-in.
20.4kg.
‘It’ll do.’ I’m hoping that the airport’s scales weigh lighter.
They don’t. The case is heavier — 20.9kg, but as it’s a self-service check-in I pretend I haven’t noticed.
I take a deep breath, watching my case as it moves along the carousel. So much for my airport experience. So much for being ready and organised. So much for turning forty with no extra stress. I glance up at the departure board.
‘Chris,’ I shout. ‘We need to run!’
July 2019
I felt stressed just reading that 😆 I’m rubbish at packing too