What do you take with you to start a new life? This was the question I found myself asking when packing this morning. I should point out that my flight isn’t for another few weeks, so this was essentially a mock-packing exercise in seeing what I could feasibly take with me.
So where do you begin? I started with the work clothes and ended up stuffing half my wardrobe in there – minus the winter clothes as I really didn’t see myself needing a thick fleece for the temperate climate.
At this point the bag looked quite full, with the clothes taking up most of the space. After the casual clothing range I moved into boredom relieving items. By this I mainly mean books and lots of them. Ransacking my shelves I found all the books that I had bought over the years that I “planned on reading” but never got around to it. There were ten in total, ranging from Sherlock Homes to le Carré and various non-fiction titles.
With that done the bag was weighed at 19kg, meaning I had space for my luxury items now. DVD’s came next but to save on space, I opted to lose the cases and stack the entire collection in one holder.
It was at this point that I thought about my vinyl collection – the epitome of a luxury item. Saying farewell to the collection was a lot harder than I originally thought, but let’s be honest, it had to be done.
What’s left to add in, you say? Well I finished off with adding the immediate necessities such as toiletries and found myself running out of room. I think it was this reason that triggered a spat of panic induced additions, such as small framed photos of family members and finally I added my work shoes and a pair of sandals. Packing done. Right?
With all these things inside, I took a step back and noticed that in true Douglas Adams style, I had left out my towel. Right! Done! Packing over. Total weight: 30kg dead on. What’s next?
