Travellers' Tales....

I think I have the task of packing a suitcase down to a fine art....this comes with years of practice - schlepping my wardrobe & personal possessions from one side of the world to the other at a moment's notice! I realised this week that I haven't passed the skill on to my children (or at least if I tried, they weren't paying attention!)

Firstly, my darling baby girl was packing her case to return to Sydney uni for the start of the new semester - we have tried (unsuccessfully) to convince her to travel light (I couldn't quite work out what she could possibly be bringing with her when she arrived here as her chest of drawers in her bedroom was completely stuffed full of her clothes, along with the one in the guest room). Nevertheless, after a 'massive clearout' when she was feeling up to it and the glandular had subsided a bit, when the inevitable day of packing bags for the return trip dawned, this was the scene:

A couple of years ago, we invested in some luggage scales and what a great investment they turned out to be - I'm sure they have saved hundreds in over-weight baggage charges......when they were pressed into action, I breathed a sigh of relief.....she proclaimed her bags to be well within the allowed weight and off we went to Heathrow (yet again.....)

On arrival at the check-in desk, we duly loaded the bags onto the luggage scale and noted the solemn look on the face of the girl checking her in...she pronounced that the bags were 'at least six kilos over' - I looked at my GG and she responded with a puzzled expression...pressed further, she explained that she had only weighed the large one! We never actually got to the bottom of why she thought the other one was either weightless or would be disregarded by the airline! Oh, the innocence of youthful naivete! This girl has obviously never had to stand in a very long queue and hand over a very large sum of money because she couldn't bear to be parted from a large section of her wardrobe....

After some sweet-talking from the LAB (whose sales and negotiating skills come in very handy on such occasions) and the removal of a large coat from the bag - which she carried over her arm but still went onto the aircraft (not in the bag admittedly....)??!! she was on her way....

Another journey to Heathrow early this morning (not by me this time!).....my son and his fiancee were flying to Las Vegas to be married on the 11th August....the main topic of conversation for the last few weeks has been........no, not the venue, flowers, food, guests or accommodation.......but the troublesome problem of how this diminutive girl was going to transport her HUGE dress from here to there....

(This is a model wearing a very similar dress from the collection by the same designer)

I visited them last week and also pondered the mission ahead....THE DRESS had to be moved so that I could sleep in their guest bedroom (it actually took up most of the space in the room!) I took with me suitcases of varying sizes and we all put our heads together to solve this mathematical problem - one VERY large dress + one VERY small girl + a possibly tight squeeze in the storage locker in the aircraft cabin = a BIG headache; or, alternatively:

one VERY large dress inside a VERY large suitcase checked into the hold + an inattentive baggage handler = an even BIGGER headache...

Eventually, it was decided that the best course was not to let THE DRESS out of sight, resulting in son, girlfriend and dress all boarding a flight to Vegas this morning - at last contact, all were happily ensconced at the pointy end of the plane (frequent flyers saved for a long while specially for the occasion) and the champagne was flowing......happy days........s